Hearing loss can affect many areas of your day-to-day life. Neglected hearing loss, for instance, can impact your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. For couples who are struggling with hearing loss, communication can become tense. This can cause increased stress, more disputes, and even the development of animosity. If untreated, in other words, hearing loss can have a significantly negative impact on your relationship.
So how are relationships impacted by hearing loss? In part, these hardships occur because the parties are not aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is usually a slow-moving and hard to notice condition. Communication might 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 result in both partners feeling alienated and can make it difficult to find workable solutions.
Often, 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. Couples can have substantial misunderstandings as a result of this. The following common problems can develop as a result:
- Arguments: Arguments are fairly common in pretty much all relationships. But arguments will be even more aggravating when one or both partners are dealing with 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, increasing the volume on the television to painful levels).
- Couples frequently confuse hearing loss for “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is when someone effortlessly 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 a conscious behavior, in other cases, it’s quite unintended. Spouses will often start to miss certain words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound jumbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can sometimes result in tension and resentment because one spouse confuses this for “selective hearing”.
- Intimacy may suffer: Communication in a relationship is often the basis of intimacy. And when that communication becomes harder, all parties might feel more distant from one another. Increased tension and frustration are often the result.
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel ignored. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is oblivious of it, this can often happen. Feeling as if your partner is not paying attention to you is not good for long-term relationship health.
These problems will often begin before anyone is diagnosed with 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 get worse.
Living with somebody who is dealing with loss of hearing
If hearing loss can lead to so much conflict in a relationship, how can you live with someone who has hearing loss? For couples who are willing to formulate new communication strategies, this typically isn’t an issue. Some of those strategies include the following:
- Utilize different words when you repeat yourself: Normally, 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. Some words might be harder to hear than others depending on which frequencies your hearing loss effects most. Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- As much as you can, try to look right into the face of the person you’re speaking with: For someone who is dealing with hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give an abundance of visual cues. 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 usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner has hearing loss, patience is especially important. You might have to repeat yourself more often or raise the volume of your voice. You might also have to speak more slowly. This kind of patience can be challenging, but it can also dramatically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
- Encourage your partner to come in for a hearing exam: We can help your partner control their hearing loss. Many areas of tension will fade away and communication will be more successful when hearing loss is well controlled. Additionally, managing hearing loss is a safety issue: hearing loss can impact 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 manage any of these potential concerns.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can include things like taking over tasks that cause substantial stress (like going to the grocery store or making phone calls). There also may be ways you can help your partner get used to their hearing aids and we can assist you with that.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
A hearing examination is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. Usually, you will simply put on a pair of headphones and listen for specific tones. But a hearing loss diagnosis can be an important step to more effectively managing symptoms and relationships.
Encouraging your partner to touch base with us can help ensure that hearing loss doesn’t sabotage your happiness or your partnership.