Hearing loss can impact many areas of your daily life. Neglected hearing loss, for instance, can affect your professional life, your favorite hobbies, and even your relationships. Communication can become tense for couples who are coping with hearing loss. Animosity can develop from the increased tension and more frequent quarrels. In other words, left uncontrolled, hearing loss can negatively impact your relationship in substantial ways.
So how are relationships affected by hearing loss? In part, these difficulties arise because the individuals aren’t aware of the hearing loss. Hearing loss usually is, after all, a gradually developing 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 lead to both partners feeling alienated and can make it hard to find workable solutions.
Relationships can be improved and communication can begin to be repaired when hearing loss is diagnosed and couples get practical solutions from us.
Can relationships be affected by hearing loss?
It’s really easy to ignore hearing loss when it first presents. This can result in substantial misunderstandings between couples. Consequently, there are a few common issues that develop:
- Feeling ignored: You would likely feel like you’re being disregarded if you addressed somebody and they didn’t respond. This can frequently happen when one partner is experiencing hearing loss and isn’t aware of it. Feeling as if your partner is not paying attention to you isn’t good for long-term relationship health.
- Intimacy may suffer: In lots of relationships, communication is the foundation of intimacy. And when that communication breaks down, all parties might feel more separated from one another. Increased tension and frustration are frequently the consequence.
- It isn’t unusual for one of the partners to blame hearing loss on “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”. In some cases, selective hearing is a conscious action, in other cases, it’s quite unintended. Spouses will often start to miss particular words or phrases or these words and phrases will sound jumbled when one of them has hearing loss. This can often be mistaken for “selective hearing,” leading to resentment and tension in the relationship.
- Arguments: It’s not uncommon for arguments to happen in a relationship, at least, sometimes. But arguments will be even more frustrating when one or both partners have hearing loss. For some couples, arguments will break out more often due to an increase in misunderstandings. Hearing loss associated behavioral changes, such as needing volumes to be painfully loud, can also become a source of tension
In many cases, this friction starts to occur before any actual diagnosis of hearing loss. Feelings of resentment might be worse when parties don’t know hearing loss is the core issue (or when the partner with hearing loss insists on ignoring their symptoms).
Advice for living with someone who has hearing loss
If hearing loss can cause so much conflict in a relationship, how do you live with someone who has hearing loss? For couples who are willing to develop new communication strategies, this usually is not an issue. 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 tension will fade away and communication will be more successful when hearing loss is well managed. In addition, 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 controlling any of these potential problems by scheduling an appointment with us.
- Patience: When you’re aware that your partner has 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 talk in a slower cadence. This type of patience can be challenging, but it can also drastically 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. Hearing loss can impact some frequencies of speech more than others, which means some words may be harder to understand (while others are easier). Changing your word choice can help strengthen your message.
- As much as possible, try to look right into the face of the individual you’re speaking with: For someone who is dealing with hearing loss, face-to-face communication can give lots of visual cues. Your partner will be able to read facial cues and body language. It’s also easier to maintain concentration and eye contact. This supplies your partner with more information to process, and that usually makes it easier to understand your intent.
- Help your partner get used to their hearing aids: This can consist of things like taking over chores that cause significant anxiety (like going to the grocery store or making phone calls). 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?
A hearing examination is a relatively simple, non-invasive experience. Typically, 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.
Take the hearing loss associated tension out of your relationship by encouraging your partner to come see us for a hearing examination.
