Husbands with Hearing Loss… and the Wives Who Love Them
Husband: I don’t enjoy going out anymore. People aren’t as much fun as they used to be.
Wife: My husband is getting anti-social.
Husband: I hear my wife but I wasn’t paying attention. I was concentrating on something else.
Wife: He tunes me out more and more.
Husband: I hear what I want to hear.
Sound familiar?
When a family member begins to lose his hearing, it affects everyone, especially the people closest to him. Due to the gradual nature of most hearing losses, the person suffering from the hearing loss is often the last to realize it.
For many men, especially those who served in the Armed Forces or worked around high levels of noise, the high frequency sounds are the first to deteriorate. They may have normal hearing for low-pitched sounds, but have a considerable loss for high-pitched speech sounds such as t, f, s, and th. They hear but it sounds like people are mumbling, especially women with their higher pitched voices.
The reason people may not notice their deteriorating hearing is that our eyes and brain compensate for this change. In fact, you only need to hear about 25% of speech sounds in order to follow most of a conversation. The other 75% of sound can be inaudible. However, it takes an incredible amount of effort to follow the conversation when certain speech sounds are missing.
With the help of the eyes, the human brain pieces the missing information together trying to make sense of conversation. Unfortunately, this is very tiring. Most people give up trying to hear within ten minutes, and resign themselves to not being part of the conversation.
The person who “hears what he wants to hear” is probably using a lot of extra brainpower piecing information together. It is not likely he will want (or be able) to exert that much effort for long. After straining for a while, he simply gives up.
If you can’t sit back and relax when following conversations, you need to learn the truth about your hearing. Have a thorough hearing test and consultation. But be sure to take your wife along. And don’t let her sit in the waiting room while you get tested. It’s critical that she understand the type of loss you have and what can be done to make communication easier for both of you. It is also important that she have realistic expectations of you and your hearing ability after you are fitted with hearing instruments.
One of my patients has a wife who expects him to understand everything she says because he now wears hearing aids. The truth is she has a soft voice and tends to lower it at the end of sentences. She often talks to him as she walks out of the room and expects him to understand. She gets annoyed when he asks her to repeat and then criticizes him and his hearing aids.
Both the hearing impaired person and his family need to be counseled on what to expect from hearing aids. They also need to be taught on how to communicate in ways that reduce misunderstandings in a marriage. Next month, I’ll discuss the things you can do to make communication easier for both of you.
Today, most hearing problems can be helped. Waiting to long can be detrimental to your hearing and your relationships. Properly fitted hearing instruments make speech more clear and reduce the drain on your brain. With some brainpower left over, you can sit back and enjoy the conversations with family and friends rather than trying to decipher chopped-up speech sounds.
Husbands aren’t the only ones with hearing loss. This article is also relevant to any wives with hearing loss and the husbands who love them! It applies to fathers and mothers with hearing losses, and their children who love them. The bottom line is that when someone has an untreated hearing loss, everyone suffers.
No one wants to wear hearing aids. But hearing instruments can bring back many of the speech sounds, making it easier to be part of conversation. With the right combination of the best hearing technology for your loss, realistic expectations, and regular follow-up care and counseling, you can communicate and connect more easily with family and friends. A better life is possible. But it starts with a good hearing test, together!
Author’s Bio
Betty Vosters-Kemp, BC-HIS, has been in the hearing healthcare field for over 32 years. She is an author, trainer, presenter and a columnist for 23 years with Senior Magazine. Betty is the Co-Owner of Avalon Hearing Aid Centers, Inc. and committed to changing the way people feel about hearing loss.
