Many aspects of your day-to-day life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Untreated hearing loss, for instance, can affect your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. Communication can become strained for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased stress and more frequent quarrels. If ignored, in other words, hearing loss can have a significantly negative effect on your relationship.
So how are relationships impacted by hearing loss? In part, these difficulties occur because the individuals are not aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually 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 problem. Workable solutions might be hard to find as both partners feel increasingly alienated.
Frequently, a diagnosis of hearing loss coupled with practical strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples start communicating again, and better their relationships.
Can hearing loss affect relationships?
When hearing loss is in the early stages, it can be hard to identify. This can result in significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common issues can develop because of this:
- Feeling ignored: You would most likely feel like you’re being dismissed if you addressed somebody and they didn’t respond. This can often occur when one partner is suffering from hearing loss and isn’t aware of it. The long-term health of your relationship can be seriously put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being disregarded.
- Arguments: Arguments are rather common in pretty much 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).
- Couples frequently confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when somebody easily hears something like “let’s go get some ice cream”, but somehow misses something like “let’s do some spring cleaning”. In some circumstances, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other cases, it’s quite unintentional. Spouses will frequently begin to miss particular words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound garbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can sometimes result in tension and resentment because one spouse mistakes this for “selective hearing”.
- Intimacy may suffer: In many relationships, communication is the foundation of intimacy. And when that communication becomes harder, all parties may feel more separated from one another. Increased tension and frustration are frequently the result.
These issues will often begin before anyone is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of resentment might be worse when parties don’t know hearing loss is the core issue (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on disregarding their symptoms).
Living with somebody who is dealing with loss of hearing
If hearing loss can cause so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who is dealing with hearing loss? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to develop new communication strategies. Here are some of those strategies:
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: When your partner doesn’t hear what you said, you will usually try repeating yourself. But try switching the words you use rather than using the same words. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words may be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Perhaps you could do things like taking over trips to the grocery store or other tasks that cause your partner anxiety. You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get accustomed to their hearing aids.
- As much as you can, try to look directly into the face of the person you’re speaking with: Communicating face-to-face can furnish a wealth of visual clues for somebody with hearing loss. Your partner will be able to read facial cues and body language. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to maintain concentration. This provides your partner with more information to process, and that usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: Your partner’s hearing loss can be controlled with our help. When hearing loss is well-managed, communication is generally more successful (and many other areas of stress may go away too). Safety is also a concern with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. It may also be hard to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better control any of these potential issues.
- Patience: This is especially true when you know that your partner is coping with hearing loss. You might have to repeat yourself more frequently or vary the volume of your voice. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. This type of patience can be challenging, but it can also drastically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
After you get diagnosed, then what?
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 a significant step to more successfully managing symptoms and relationships.
Encouraging your partner to get in touch with us can help ensure that hearing loss doesn’t undermine your happiness or your partnership.