Many facets of your daily life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Your hobbies, your professional life, and even your love life can be impacted by hearing loss, for instance. Communication can become strained for couples who are dealing with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent arguments. In other words, left unchecked, hearing loss can negatively impact your relationship in substantial ways.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? These difficulties occur, in part, because people are often oblivious that they even have hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and difficult to detect condition. Communication might be strained because of hearing loss and you and your partner may not even be aware it’s the root of the issue. Workable solutions may be hard to find as both partners feel more and more alienated.
Relationships can be helped and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can relationships be affected by hearing loss?
When hearing loss is in the early phases, it’s difficult to detect. This can lead to significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common problems can develop because of this:
- Feeling ignored: When somebody 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 often take place. Feeling like your partner isn’t paying attention to you is not good for long-term relationship health.
- Arguments: Arguments are pretty common in pretty much all relationships. But arguments will be even more aggravating when one or both partners have hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will break out more often because of an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for example, boosting the volume on the television to painful levels).
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the foundation of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. Increased tension and frustration are frequently the result.
- Couples often confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what occurs when someone hears “we’re having cake for dessert” very distinctly, but somehow does not 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 choice. 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,” resulting in resentment and tension in the relationship.
These problems will frequently start before anybody is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of resentment may be worse when parties don’t know hearing loss is the root issue (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on ignoring their symptoms).
Living with somebody who is dealing with loss of hearing
If hearing loss can create so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who is dealing with hearing loss? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to formulate new communication strategies. Here are some of those strategies:
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner control their hearing loss. When hearing loss is well-managed, communication is usually more successful (and many other areas of tension may go away too). 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. We can help your partner better manage any of these potential issues.
- Utilize different words when you repeat yourself: Typically, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner doesn’t hear you. But instead of using the same words over and over again, try to change things up. Some words may be harder to hear than others depending on which frequencies your hearing loss effects most. Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner has hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You may need to change the way you speak, like raising your volume for example. It might also be necessary to talk in a slower cadence. This type of patience can be a challenge, but it can also dramatically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
- Try to communicate face-to-face as often as you can: Communicating face-to-face can supply a wealth of visual cues for somebody with hearing loss. You will be supplying your partner with body language and facial cues. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. This provides your partner with more information to process, and that typically makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: Perhaps 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 used to their hearing aids.
What happens after you get diagnosed?
Hearing assessments are typically non-invasive and quite simple. In most instances, individuals 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 regulate your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Encouraging your partner to touch base with us can help guarantee that hearing loss doesn’t sabotage your happiness or your partnership.