Elderly relative won't wear hearing aids. Stopping visits until he does?

YANBU. Well done for putting boundaries in. Your mum and you deserve consideration and already do so much for someone who sounds ungrateful and selfish. 💐

I'm 77, worn hearing aids since my fifties, if I want to communicate I have to wear them. Mine are NHS, and absolutely fine. I think OP and her mother have put up with an awful lot from her grandfather, he seems to assume that they're his servants. I also think that their solution is a good idea.

I'm happily contemplating those who are shouting 'Let the old sod suffer! Stand your ground!' losing their own hearing. You almost certainly will when you get older. This attitude is rather cruel and unfeeling.

Wearing hearing aids can be uncomfortable, the sound you get through them can be unpleasant - especially if you can't afford top-of-the-range aids, and they make your ears itch. You should wear them if you are losing your hearing - it can affect your cognitive ability, but if you are profoundly deaf, aids aren't all that helpful anyway.

This guy is 82 and frail. He isn't going to be around much longer. How hard is it to be a bit tolerant?

That's what I would call setting a boundary. Boundaries aren't to change other people, they're to respect and protect yourself. What you've described here sounds exactly like setting a boundary to me, simply being clear about what you will and won't do/accept (eg won't shout or have TV on loud). I don't think anyone would suggest this elderly man is going to think in terms of boundaries or have a sudden personality change. But OP will have stood up for her limits, and set her boundaries.

Well—but he can lean in other oeople then? Like carers? Or his old guy friends?

@TheTreeLightsAreFuckingMeOffNow
ignore the people insisting you immolate yourself for your granddad. Your rule is perfectly reasonable

If you can’t implement the new rule in your house then go into the TV control and simply eliminate the sound and lose the control. He will either make do with subtitles and watch silently or stop coming to yours because its boring without tv.

Your mother needs help but I think all you can do is have your father set the boundaries.

Hire a taxi to take him to and from his group.

Best of luck.

I dont think its always productive to boundary set in the traditional way with vulnerable elderly people who are stubborn and stuck in their ways. Your grandad isnt going to think, Oh best respect her boundary! As that's a contemporary concept that will have little meaning. He's just going to think you're being mean, and lean even more on other people. So pragmatism is what's needed. I'd just speak to him normally and when he didn't hear, I'd shrug and gesture that he needed to put his hearing aids in. I wouldn't shout or make further attempts just keep making the put your hearing aids in gesture, dripping tap style. TV would be subtitles.

Really good that you and your mum have started the ball rolling on getting practical help in place. Take no prisoners!!!

He'll have to suck it up, but will soon get used to it.

I expect he'll throw a few tantrums but stick to your guns.

It's not always about vanity .

My understanding is that hearing aids raise the volume of all sounds including background noises - they don't differentiate between the sound of the voices of people speaking directly to you - and things going on in the background - traffic, the washing machine, other people if you are out somewhere. They can just make someone's world feel noisy and painful.

I think if someone has aids when they first get slight hearing loss they get used to them and the volume will be adjusted as their hearing worsens - but for someone with major hearing loss to go from no aids to aids that a medical professional has given for their now substantial needs can be quite painful.

That's why someone may choose not to wear them.

But yes, it can be irritating when you have to get practically in someone's face and shout.

Not a reason to refuse to see an elderly person who needs help and company though. And threats like that are rather controlling.

Apply for this for your GF
It is not means tested

https://www.gov.uk/attendance-allowance

Book your GF an appointment at Specsavers to have his ears cleaned out, it costs £50

I do sympathise, OP. My Mum is going the same way. She just doesn’t hear what I say and so I have to bellow but refuses to have a hearing test. It’s exhausting shouting at her and makes normal conversation impossible. This is just me, but I also find I get often a real upsurge of anger when I say something and she just doesn’t respond - it’s irrational but I feel that my parents always ignored me and didn’t take me seriously growing up, and it clearly triggers a reaction in me that she’s doing that again (even though the reason is different). And I have sensory sensitivities too and find noise really difficult. It’s very frustrating. I have no answers beyond those you’ve already been given by the kinder and more constructive posters up thread, but you have my sympathies.

My partner is hard of hearing and though I don't like repeating myself or the telly being on loud, I sympathise with how unpleasant he finds it to wear hearing aids. They make his inner ears itch and he can't hear a thing when he's out if there's any wind, and many sounds are uncomfortably over-magnified. He does get the hearing aids serviced and so on.
I agree with pp that you should tell your granddad that you can't tolerate the TV being on loud when you visit. Communication will be very difficult if he can't hear but insists that he can! TBH he sounds like quite a difficult chap anyway, hard of hearing or not, and if it wasn't this being a pain, it might be something else.

Specsavers do ear waxing

TheDotMatriX , she's already done this.

Seriously, you make absolutely no sense.

You’ve asked a question in AIBU some people have said you ARE being unreasonable and you have been aggressive towards them.

Further down the thread, you have said you and your mother are at breaking point. That puts a different perspective on your AIBU.

You seem intent on this being about gender when you are the one writing things such as “sitting looking pretty” which have no relevance to your AIBU or anything I have written.

I am not naive and FWIW it is 10.30pm. I left home at 8.00am this morning, I have children, a job, a home and today have myself, dedicated time I don’t really have, to look after two very annoying, very selfish elderly relatives from two different families. It’s hard.

You are very rude and very aggressive and I will no longer engage in this thread. I do however, wish you all the best and hope you resolve your issue with your grandparent.

Men don’t just turn into paragons of virtue when they get old, you know? He’s a grown man, not a child.

My son is deaf. He needs regular breaks from his hearing aids because it can be really tiring/overwhelming/uncomfortable to wear them all the time.

Luckily people seem more understanding of a deaf child than a deaf elderly person and people don't tend to treat his deafness as an irritation. I wish people had the same respect for elderly people who are losing their hearing.

My great-aunt was very hard of hearing.
She’d wear her hearing aids to watch tv, and then take them out when we’d visit.
I think she was embarrassed.
They were huge things that fit behind her ears — I kind of don’t blame her.