Many facets of your day-to-day life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Neglected hearing loss, for example, can impact your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. Communication can become strained for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. This can cause increased tension, more arguments, and even the development of animosity. In other words, left uncontrolled, hearing loss can negatively impact your relationship in significant ways.
So, how does hearing loss effect relationships? In part, these difficulties occur because the parties aren’t aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is typically a slow-moving and hard to notice condition. Communication may be strained because of hearing loss and you and your partner might not even be aware it’s the root of the problem. This can result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it difficult to find workable solutions.
Relationships can be helped and communication can start to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can hearing loss affect relationships?
When hearing loss is in the early phases, it can be hard to identify. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings because of this. As a result, there are some common problems that develop:
- Arguments: Arguments are rather common in pretty much all relationships. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners have hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will break out more often due to an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for instance, increasing the volume on the television to painful levels).
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel dismissed. This can often occur when one partner is experiencing hearing loss and doesn’t know it. The long-term health of your relationship can be seriously put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being ignored.
- Couples often confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when someone easily 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 behavior, in other cases, it’s quite unintended. One of the most frequent effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they may begin to miss words or specific phrases will seem garbled. This can sometimes lead to tension and resentment because one spouse mistakes this for “selective hearing”.
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is often the foundation of intimacy. And when that communication becomes harder, all parties may feel more distant from one another. Consequently, hearing loss may introduce friction throughout the relationship, leading to more frustration and tension.
Often, this friction starts to occur before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. If someone doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the core of the issue, or if they are ignoring their symptoms, feelings of resentment could get worse.
Living with a person who is dealing with loss of hearing
How do you live with a person who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can cause 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:
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner manage their hearing loss. Many areas of tension will fade away and communication will be more successful when hearing loss is well controlled. Additionally, managing hearing loss is a safety issue: hearing loss can impact your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. It might also be difficult to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get help controlling any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner has hearing loss, patience is especially important. You may need to change the way you talk, like raising your volume for example. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be dramatically improved by exercising this type of patience.
- Try to talk face-to-face as frequently as you can: Communicating face-to-face can furnish a wealth of visual clues for somebody with hearing loss. You will be supplying your partner with body language and facial cues. 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.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Maybe you could do things like taking over trips to the grocery store or other tasks that cause your partner stress. You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get accustomed to their hearing aids.
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: Usually, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner doesn’t hear you. But try switching the words you use rather than using the same words. Certain words might be more difficult to hear than others depending on which frequencies your hearing loss impact most. Your message can be reinforced by changing the words you utilize.
What happens after you get diagnosed?
A hearing test is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. In most circumstances, people who are tested will do little more than put on specialized headphones and raise their hand when they hear a sound. You will be better able to manage your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Take the hearing loss related tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing examination.