Hearing loss can affect many areas of your day-to-day life. Untreated hearing loss, for instance, 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 tension and more frequent quarrels. In other words, left uncontrolled, hearing loss can negatively affect your relationship in substantial ways.
So how are relationships impacted by hearing loss? In part, these difficulties arise because the parties aren’t aware of the hearing loss. After all, hearing loss is normally a slow-moving and hard to recognize 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. Workable solutions may be difficult to find as both partners feel more and more alienated.
Often, a diagnosis of hearing loss coupled with practical strategies from a hearing specialist can help couples start communicating again, and better their relationships.
Can hearing loss impact relationships?
It’s really easy to ignore hearing loss when it first presents. Couples can have significant misunderstandings because of this. As a result, there are a few common issues that develop:
- Feeling ignored: When somebody doesn’t respond to what you say, you’re likely to feel dismissed. When one of the partners has hearing loss but is oblivious of it, this can frequently occur. Feeling as if your partner isn’t paying attention to you is not good for long-term relationship health.
- Arguments: It’s not unusual for arguments to happen in a relationship, at least, occasionally. But arguments will be even more aggravating when one or both partners have hearing loss. Arguments can happen more often too. Hearing loss related behavioral changes, such as requiring things to be painfully loud, can also become a source of tension
- Intimacy may suffer: In many relationships, communication is the cornerstone of intimacy. This can cause a rift to build up between the partners. Consequently, hearing loss might introduce friction throughout the relationship, causing more frustration and tension.
- Couples frequently mistake hearing loss for “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”. Sometimes, selective hearing is absolutely unintended, and in others, it can be a conscious choice. One of the most common effects of hearing loss on a spouse is that they might start to miss words or specific phrases will seem garbled. This can frequently be mistaken for “selective hearing,” resulting in resentment and tension in the relationship.
These problems will frequently begin before anybody is diagnosed with hearing loss. Feelings of bitterness may be worse when parties don’t suspect hearing loss is the root problem (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on ignoring their symptoms).
Advice for living with someone who is dealing with hearing loss
How do you live with a person who is dealing with hearing loss when hearing loss can result in so much conflict? This will only be a problem for couples who aren’t willing to formulate new communication strategies. Some of those strategies include the following:
- As much as you can, try to look directly into the face of the individual you’re speaking with: For somebody 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. And with increased eye contact it will be easier to preserve concentration. By giving your partner more visual information to process they will have a less difficult time understanding what you mean.
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: When your partner doesn’t hear what you said, you will typically try repeating yourself. But rather than using the same words over and over again, try to change things up. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means certain words might be more difficult to understand (while others are easier). Your message can be strengthened by changing the words you use.
- 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 effective when hearing loss is well controlled. Safety is also a concern with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. You might also fail 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: Maybe you could do things like taking over trips to the grocery store or other chores that cause your partner anxiety. There also might be ways you can help your partner get used to their hearing aids and we can assist you with that.
- Patience: When you recognize that your partner is dealing with hearing loss, patience is particularly important. You may have to repeat yourself more often or vary the volume of your voice. It might also be necessary to speak in a slower cadence. This type of patience can be challenging, but it can also dramatically improve the effectiveness of your communication.
After you get diagnosed, then what?
A hearing test is a fairly simple, non-invasive experience. In most circumstances, individuals who undergo tests will do little more than wear specialized headphones and raise a hand when they hear a sound. But a hearing loss diagnosis can be a significant step to more effectively managing symptoms and relationships.
Encouraging your partner to touch base with us can help guarantee that hearing loss doesn’t undermine your happiness or your partnership.