Many aspects of your daily life can be impacted by Hearing Loss. Your pastimes, your professional life, and even your love life can be affected by hearing loss, for instance. Communication can become tense for couples who are coping with hearing loss. This can cause increased tension, more disputes, and even the growth of animosity. If neglected, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative effect on your relationship.
So, how does hearing loss effect relationships? These difficulties occur, in part, because people are often not aware that they even have hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and difficult to notice 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 result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it hard to find practical solutions.
Relationships can be improved and communication can start to be mended when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can relationships be impacted by hearing loss?
When hearing loss is in the early stages, it’s difficult to detect. Couples can have considerable misunderstandings as a result of this. The following common issues can develop as a result:
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is usually the basis of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. As a result, hearing loss might introduce friction throughout the relationship, ultimately causing more frustration and tension.
- Feeling ignored: When someone doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel ignored. 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 severely put in jeopardy if you feel like you’re being dismissed.
- Arguments: Arguments are fairly common in almost all relationships. But when hearing loss is present, those arguments can become even more aggravating. Arguments can become more frequent too. Hearing loss related behavioral changes, like needing things 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 what happens when someone hears “we’re having brownies for dessert” very distinctly, but somehow doesn’t hear “we need to take out the trash before we eat”. In some cases, 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 partner is that they may begin 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”.
These issues will often start before anybody is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of bitterness might be worse when parties don’t suspect hearing loss is the root problem (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on disregarding their symptoms).
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? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to develop new communication strategies. Some of those strategies include the following:
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner regulate their hearing loss. Many areas of stress will fade away and communication will be more successful when hearing loss is well managed. Additionally, treating hearing loss is a safety concern: hearing loss can effect your ability to hear the telephone, smoke detectors and fire alarms, and the doorbell. You could also fail to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get assistance managing any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Try to communicate face-to-face as often 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 an easier time understanding what you mean.
- Patience: When you recognize that your partner has hearing loss, patience is especially important. You may have to repeat yourself more frequently or raise the volume of your voice. You might also have to speak more slowly. This type of patience can be a challenge, but it can also dramatically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: When your partner doesn’t understand what you said, you will normally try repeating yourself. But try changing the words you use instead of using the same words. Certain words might be harder to hear than others depending on what frequencies your hearing loss effects most. Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- 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 anxiety. 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 tests are typically non-invasive and quite simple. In most cases, those who undergo tests will do little more than put on specialized headphones and raise a hand when they hear a sound. You will be better able to manage your symptoms and your relationships after you get a diagnosis.
Take the hearing loss associated tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing examination.