Many aspects of your day-to-day life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Neglected hearing loss, for instance, can impact your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. Communication can become tense for couples who are coping with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent arguments. If ignored, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative impact on your relationship.
So, how does hearing loss impact relationships? In part, these tribulations arise because the parties are not aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is normally a slow-moving and hard to detect condition. Communication might be strained because of hearing loss and you and your partner may not even be aware it’s the root of the issue. Practical solutions may be hard to find as both partners feel more and more alienated.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get practical solutions from us.
Can relationships be impacted by hearing loss?
It’s really easy to overlook hearing loss when it first presents. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings because of this. The following common issues can develop because of this:
- Arguments: Arguments are rather common in almost all relationships. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can be even more aggravating. Arguments can happen more often too. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for example, boosting the volume on the television to painful levels).
- It’s not unusual for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when someone effortlessly hears something like “let’s go get some ice cream”, but somehow misses something like “let’s do some spring cleaning”. In some instances, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other instances, it’s quite unintended. One of the most frequent effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they might start to miss words or specific phrases will seem garbled. This can often be mistaken for “selective hearing,” resulting in resentment and tension in the relationship.
- Feeling ignored: You would probably feel like you’re being disregarded if you addressed somebody and they didn’t respond. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is unaware of it, this can frequently take place. Feeling as if your partner isn’t paying attention to you isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the foundation of intimacy. And when that communication becomes harder, all parties might feel more separated from one another. Increased tension and frustration are frequently the result.
These problems will frequently start before anybody is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of resentment might be worse when parties don’t suspect hearing loss is the core problem (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on ignoring their symptoms).
Advice for living with someone who has hearing loss
How do you live with somebody who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can create so much conflict? This will only be an issue for couples who aren’t willing to develop new communication strategies. Some of those strategies include the following:
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can include things like taking over tasks that cause significant stress (such as going shopping or making phone calls). You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get used to their hearing aids.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: Your partner’s hearing loss can be managed with our help. When hearing loss is under control, communication is usually more successful (and many other areas of stress may go away as well). Additionally, treating hearing loss is a safety concern: hearing loss can effect your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You might also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get assistance controlling any of these potential issues by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Try to communicate face-to-face as often as you can: For somebody who has hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give lots of visual cues. You will be providing your partner with body language and facial cues. It’s also easier to preserve concentration and eye contact. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a less difficult time understanding what you mean.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You might have to repeat yourself more frequently or raise the volume of your voice. It might also be necessary to speak in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be substantially improved by exercising this type of patience.
- When you repeat what you said, try using different words: When your partner doesn’t hear what you said, you will normally try repeating yourself. But rather than using the same words again and again, try changing things up. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means some words may be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Your message can be reinforced by changing the words you utilize.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
Hearing assessments are generally non-invasive and really simple. Typically, you will simply put on a set of headphones and listen for specific tones. But a hearing loss diagnosis can be an important step to more effectively managing symptoms and relationships.
Encouraging your partner to get in touch with us can help guarantee that hearing loss doesn’t sabotage your happiness or your partnership.
