Many aspects of your daily life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Neglected hearing loss, for example, can affect your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. Communication can become strained for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. This can cause increased stress, more quarrels, and even the development of animosity. In other words, left unchecked, hearing loss can negatively impact your relationship in substantial ways.
So how are relationships impacted by hearing loss? In part, these tribulations arise because the individuals are not aware of the hearing loss. Hearing loss usually is, after all, a gradually advancing condition. Communication may be tense 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 difficult to find practical solutions.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get practical solutions from us.
Can hearing loss impact relationships?
It’s really easy to overlook hearing loss when it initially begins to develop. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings because of this. The following common issues can develop as a result:
- Intimacy may suffer: In many relationships, communication is the cornerstone of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. Increased tension and frustration are often the consequence.
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel disregarded. This can frequently happen when one partner is experiencing hearing loss and doesn’t know it. The long-term health of your relationship can be significantly put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being ignored.
- It isn’t unusual for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what occurs when somebody hears “we’re having brownies for dessert” very clearly, but somehow doesn’t hear “we need to take out the garbage before we eat”. Sometimes, selective hearing is totally unintentional, and in others, it can be a conscious decision. Spouses will often begin to miss particular words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound jumbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can often be mistaken for “selective hearing,” causing resentment and tension in the relationship.
- Arguments: It’s not unusual for arguments to occur in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can become even more aggravating. Arguments can happen more often too. For others, an increase in arguments could be a result of changes in behavior (for example, increasing the volume on the television to painful levels).
These problems will often start before anybody is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of bitterness may be worse when parties don’t know hearing loss is the core issue (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on dismissing their symptoms).
Advice for living with someone who has hearing loss
How do you live with somebody who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can create so much conflict? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to develop new communication strategies. Here are some of those strategies:
- 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 might be ways you can help your partner get accustomed to their hearing aids and we can help you with that.
- Try to communicate face-to-face as often as you can: For someone who has 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. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a simpler time understanding what you mean.
- 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 successful when hearing loss is well managed. Additionally, managing hearing loss is a safety concern: hearing loss can impact your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You might also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get help managing any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Utilize different words when you repeat yourself: Usually, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner doesn’t hear you. But rather than using the same words over and over again, try changing things up. Hearing loss can affect some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words may be harder to understand (while others are easier). Your message can be reinforced by changing the words you use.
- Patience: This is particularly relevant when you recognize that your partner is struggling with hearing loss. You might have to repeat yourself more often or raise the volume of your voice. It may also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be substantially improved by exercising this kind of patience.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
A hearing test is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. Typically, you will simply put on a set of headphones and listen for particular tones. But a hearing loss diagnosis can be a significant step to more successfully managing symptoms and relationships.
Take the hearing loss associated tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing examination.