Hearing loss can impact many areas of your day-to-day life. Neglected hearing loss, for example, can impact your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. Communication can become tense for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased stress and more frequent quarrels. In other words, left uncontrolled, hearing loss can negatively affect your relationship in significant ways.
So, how does hearing loss effect relationships? In part, these hardships occur because the parties are not aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and hard to detect condition. Communication may be tense because of hearing loss and you and your partner might not even be aware it’s the root of the issue. This can lead to both partners feeling alienated and can make it hard to find workable solutions.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can hearing loss impact relationships?
When hearing loss is in the early phases, it can be hard to identify. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings because of this. Consequently, there are a few common issues that develop:
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the cornerstone of intimacy. And when that communication breaks down, all parties may feel more distant from each other. Increased tension and frustration are often the consequence.
- Couples frequently confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what happens when someone hears “we’re having brownies for dessert” very clearly, but somehow does not hear “we need to take out the garbage before we eat”. In some cases, selective hearing is a conscious behavior, in other cases, it’s quite unintentional. One of the most frequent effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they might begin to miss words or certain phrases will seem garbled. This can often be mistaken for “selective hearing,” causing resentment and tension in the relationship.
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel ignored. This can frequently happen when one partner is suffering from hearing loss and isn’t aware of it. The long-term health of your relationship can be significantly put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being ignored.
- Arguments: It’s not abnormal for arguments to take place in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners are dealing with hearing loss. Arguments can become more frequent too. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for instance, increasing the volume on the television to painful volumes).
Often, this friction begins to occur before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. If somebody doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the problem, or if they are ignoring their symptoms, feelings of resentment could get worse.
Tips for living with someone who is dealing with hearing loss
If hearing loss can lead to so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who is dealing with hearing loss? For couples who are willing to establish new communication techniques, this typically is not a problem. Here are a few 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 typically try repeating yourself. But rather than using the same words again and again, try to change things up. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words may be harder to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help reinforce your message.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You may have to repeat yourself more often or raise the volume of your voice. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. This type of patience can be a challenge, but it can also drastically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can include things like taking over chores that cause significant stress (like going to the grocery store or making phone calls). There also may be ways you can help your partner get used to their hearing aids and we can help you with that.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: Your partner’s hearing loss can be controlled with our help. Many areas of tension will fade away and communication will be more effective when hearing loss is well managed. Safety is also an issue with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. It might also be hard to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better control any of these potential concerns.
- Try to talk face-to-face as frequently as possible: Communicating face-to-face can furnish a wealth of visual cues for somebody with hearing loss. Your partner will be able to make use of facial cues and body language. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to maintain concentration. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a less difficult time understanding what you mean.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
Hearing tests are generally non-invasive and quite simple. Typically, you will simply put on a pair of headphones and listen for particular tones. You will be better able to regulate your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Encouraging your partner to get in touch with us can help ensure that hearing loss doesn’t undermine your happiness or your partnership.
