Many facets of your day-to-day life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Neglected hearing loss, for example, can affect your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. Communication can become strained for couples who are coping with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased stress and more frequent arguments. In other words, left uncontrolled, hearing loss can negatively impact your relationship in substantial ways.
So, how does hearing loss effect relationships? These difficulties arise, in part, because individuals are usually not aware that they even have hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and difficult to detect 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 issue. Practical solutions may be hard to find as both partners feel increasingly alienated.
Frequently, a diagnosis of hearing loss along with helpful strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples begin communicating again, and better their relationships.
Can relationships be affected by hearing loss?
When hearing loss is in the early phases, it’s difficult to detect. This can result in significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common issues can develop as a result:
- Arguments: It isn’t abnormal for arguments to occur in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can be even more frustrating. For some couples, arguments will break out more frequently because of an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a result of changes in behavior (for instance, boosting the volume on the television to painful volumes).
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the foundation of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. Consequently, hearing loss may introduce friction throughout the relationship, ultimately causing more frustration and tension.
- Couples frequently confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when somebody effortlessly hears something like “let’s go get some ice cream”, but somehow misses something like “let’s do some spring cleaning”. Sometimes, selective hearing is totally unintentional, and in others, it can be a conscious choice. One of the most frequent effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they may start to miss words or specific phrases will seem garbled. This can sometimes lead to tension and resentment because one spouse confuses this for “selective hearing”.
- Feeling ignored: When someone doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel disregarded. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is oblivious of it, this can frequently happen. The long-term health of your relationship can be severely put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being dismissed.
Often, this friction starts to happen before any formal diagnosis of hearing loss. If someone doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the problem, or if they are disregarding their symptoms, feelings of resentment could be worse.
Tips for living with someone who has hearing loss
If hearing loss can create so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who has hearing loss? For couples who are willing to establish new communication strategies, this typically is not a problem. Here are a few of those strategies:
- Try to communicate face-to-face as frequently as possible: For someone who is dealing with hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give an abundance of visual cues. Your partner will be able to make use of facial cues and body language. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to preserve concentration. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have an easier time understanding what you mean.
- Use different words when you repeat yourself: When your partner doesn’t understand what you said, you will normally try repeating yourself. But instead of using the same words over and over again, try changing things up. Some words might be harder to hear than others depending on which frequencies your hearing loss impact most. Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Maybe you could do things like taking over the grocery shopping or other chores that cause your partner stress. There also may be ways you can help your partner get accustomed to their hearing aids and we can assist you with that.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner manage their hearing loss. When hearing loss is well-managed, communication is usually more effective (and many other areas of tension may recede also). Safety is also an issue with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. You could also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get assistance controlling any of these potential issues by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Patience: This is especially true when you recognize that your partner is coping with hearing loss. You might have to repeat yourself more often or raise the volume of your voice. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be dramatically improved by practicing this type of patience.
After you get diagnosed, then what?
Hearing assessments are typically non-invasive and quite simple. In most circumstances, people who undergo tests will do little more than wear specialized headphones and raise their hand when they hear a sound. You will be better able to regulate 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 assessment.