Many facets of your day-to-day life can be affected by Hearing Loss. Untreated hearing loss, for example, can affect your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. For couples who are coping with hearing loss, communication can become strained. Animosity can develop from the increased stress and more frequent quarrels. If untreated, in other words, hearing loss can have a substantially negative effect on your relationship.
So, how does hearing loss impact relationships? 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. Consequently, you (and your partner) may not detect that hearing loss is the base cause of your communication issues. Workable solutions might be hard to find as both partners feel more and more alienated.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be mended when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get reliable solutions from us.
Can hearing loss impact relationships?
It’s really easy to disregard hearing loss when it initially begins to develop. This can lead to significant misunderstandings between couples. The following common issues can develop because of this:
- Arguments: It’s not unusual for arguments to take place in a relationship, at least, occasionally. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners are dealing with hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will erupt more frequently because of an increase in misunderstandings. For others, an increase in arguments could be a consequence of changes in behavior (for instance, increasing the volume on the television to painful volumes).
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of 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.
- 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 isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- It isn’t uncommon for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “selective hearing”: Selective hearing is what happens when somebody hears “we’re having brownies for dessert” very clearly, but somehow does not hear “we need to take out the trash before we eat”. In some circumstances, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other cases, it’s quite unintended. One of the most common effects of hearing loss on a partner is that they may start to miss words or specific phrases will seem garbled. This can frequently be mistaken for “selective hearing,” leading to resentment and tension in the relationship.
These issues will often start before anyone is diagnosed with hearing loss. If someone doesn’t know that hearing loss is at the root of the issue, or if they are disregarding their symptoms, feelings of resentment could be worse.
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 has hearing loss? For couples who are willing to formulate new communication strategies, this typically is not an issue. Here are some of those strategies:
- Patience: This is especially relevant when you recognize that your partner is struggling with hearing loss. You might have to repeat yourself more frequently or raise the volume of your voice. It may also be necessary to speak in a slower cadence. The effectiveness of your communication can be significantly improved by practicing this kind of patience.
- When you repeat what you said, try making use of different words: Typically, you will try to repeat what you said when your partner fails to hear you. But instead of 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 reinforced by changing the words you utilize.
- As much as you can, try to look directly into the face of the individual you’re speaking with: Communicating face-to-face can furnish 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. 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: 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. Safety is also a concern with hearing loss because it can cause you to fail to hear the doorbell, phone, and smoke alarm. It may also be hard to hear oncoming traffic. Your partner can get assistance managing any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- 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 stress. You can also ask your partner’s hearing specialist if there are ways you can help them get used to their hearing aids.
After you get diagnosed, what happens next?
Hearing assessments are typically non-invasive and really simple. Usually, 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 related tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing test.
