Many aspects of your day-to-day life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Untreated hearing loss, for example, can affect your professional life, your favorite pastimes, and even your relationships. For couples who are struggling with hearing loss, communication can become strained. Animosity can develop from the increased stress and more frequent quarrels. If ignored, in other words, hearing loss can have a significantly negative impact on your relationship.
So, how does hearing loss impact relationships? In part, these hardships arise because the parties aren’t aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is typically a slow-moving and difficult to recognize condition. Communication may be strained because of hearing loss and you and your partner may 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 practical solutions.
Often, a diagnosis of hearing loss along with practical strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples start communicating again, and improve their relationships.
Can hearing loss affect relationships?
When hearing loss is in the early phases, it’s difficult to detect. Couples can have substantial misunderstandings because of this. The following common problems can develop as a result:
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel dismissed. This can often 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.
- Intimacy may suffer: In many relationships, communication is the cornerstone of intimacy. And when that communication breaks down, all parties might feel more distant from each other. Consequently, hearing loss may introduce friction throughout the relationship, ultimately causing more frustration and tension.
- Arguments: Arguments are pretty common in pretty much all relationships. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners have hearing loss. Arguments can become more frequent too. Hearing loss related behavioral changes, such as needing volumes to be painfully loud, can also become a source of tension
- It isn’t uncommon for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “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 cases, selective hearing is absolutely unintentional, and in others, it can be a conscious decision. One of the most common effects of hearing loss on a partner is that they may begin to miss words or certain phrases will seem garbled. This can sometimes lead to tension and resentment because one spouse mistakes this for “selective hearing”.
Often, this friction begins to occur before any formal diagnosis of hearing loss. If somebody doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the issue, or if they are dismissing their symptoms, feelings of resentment could be worse.
Advice for living with someone who is dealing with hearing loss
How do you live with a person who has hearing loss when hearing loss can cause so much conflict? For couples who are willing to establish new communication strategies, this usually isn’t an issue. Here are some of those strategies:
- As much as you can, try to look right into the face of the individual you’re talking with: Communicating face-to-face can provide a wealth of visual cues for someone with hearing loss. Your partner will be able to make use of facial cues and body language. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. This provides your partner with more information to process, and that usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner has hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You may have to change the way you talk, like raising your volume for instance. It might also be necessary to speak in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be significantly improved by practicing this type of patience.
- When you repeat what you said, try using different words: Normally, 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. 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 strengthened by changing the words you utilize.
- 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 well-managed, communication is typically more effective (and many other areas of stress may go away also). Additionally, managing hearing loss is a safety issue: hearing loss can effect your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. It might also be hard to hear oncoming traffic. We can help your partner better regulate any of these potential concerns.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can consist of things like taking over chores that cause substantial stress (like going to the grocery store or making phone calls). There also might be ways you can help your partner get accustomed to their hearing aids and we can help you with that.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
Hearing assessments are generally non-invasive and really simple. Usually, you will simply put on a set of headphones and listen for particular tones. 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.