Partner deaf frustration

[Springsummer23]

I know I'm being awful when I say this. But my partner is completely deaf in 1 ear and needs a hearing aid for the other ear.

It's very hard to have a conversation with him. We will be chatting and he replies, we have conversation he's saying all the words that make it a 2 way conversation. So I thi k its all good then 20 mins later he will say or ask something that indicates he didn't really hear most of what was said.

Also if there is a family conversation. He projects his voice so loudly it dominants the whole conversation it bounces of the walls. And it kind of kills the conversation. And sometimes we can't have a conversation that we need to because he's dominating it.

I know its not his fault and i know I sound awful for writing this post . I think he projects his voice because he can't gear himself? I have tried talking to him about his hearing aid being adjusted . But he seems ti think he can gear like everyone else with hus hearing aid. And he does the project his voice thing so its hard to tall to him anyway.

I'm just wondering if anyone has experienced anything similar.

It would be so lovely to just have a normal conversation where everyone is a part of it.

I don't think learning an entirely new language and way to communicate, also asking everyone you know to learn it, then having the time and money to spend on that learning is remotely the same thing.

Very glad to read that having a wheelchair has helped you, OP but there's really no equivalence there.

Well I’ve also learnt English as a second language like many other people and so has DH who learnt my language 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️
yes it means making the effort. But I’d have thought that effort was worth it.

(btw an electric wheelchair isn’t cheap either - talk about thousands pounds…. And then of course, a5 some pint, you need to replace it etc…)

Bit rude. Try harder in other words. Tell you what, come back to me when you've built the wheelchair, eh?

Unfortunately lots of people can’t be bothered, its ableism in action. My son is hearing impaired, we do BSL, we’re not fluent, but we get better all the time. Like a lot of hearing impaired people he finds his hearing is often too much and exhausting, if we didn’t sign he simply wouldn’t be able to communicate a lot of the time. You also have to consider that signing is also vital in noisy settings.

This is ableist bollocks.

OP, it’s such hard work following a conversation if you are deaf, and people don’t like to stop and say they didn’t hear something. It’s very common with people who have an acquired hearing loss.

@FangsForTheMemory what is your advice if someone doesn’t dare stop the conversation?
It can be so hard to know if they can hear watt you’re saying or not if they dint tell you.

SpecialMangeTout · Yesterday 14:24
“Can I ask why posters who have hearing issues aren’t using sign language, at least home with partner etc…?

i have a chronic health condition which means I get tired very easily. I now use an electric wheelchair. I would see sign language the same way? A tool to make my life easier.
Or is it that partner/family wouldnt be happy to make the effort?”

WOW! I wish BSL was that easy to learn! I took lessons for weeks but sorry to say, I couldn’t grasp it at all. I became stressed at my inability to get on with it & had to give up.

Getting my partner to learn it too would be impossible.

With respect, sad to say but your response comes over as arrogant and dismissive.

My partner has been partially deaf since birth, he has no hearing on the right side at all, his left side was ignored by his mother, who ,when people mentioned he wasn't hearing them or he needed a hearing aid, said things like "he's fine there's nothing wrong with his hearing." Three years ago he moved in with me and I made him go for an eye and ear test, consequently he found he needed very strong glasses another thing ignored by his mother, and a hearing aid as he was now profoundly deaf in his right ear from straining to hear things. Now I know he's a newbie at this, but he won't leave the hearing aid alone and keeps turning the volume right fown low. He doesn't hear what I say and if he does hear a few words, he makes things up as he goes along. He is a constant fiddler and this hearing aid is the 3rd one he's had in 30 months because he keeps breaking them, I always know when he can't hear me as he makes up things he thinks I've said or I have to repeat things 3 or 4 times. I am aware the deafness and not hearing me are not his fault, if anything it's his mother's fault not helping him years ago, but I wish he would leave the hearing aids alone, after he has them fixed he can hear grass growing, but after a week or so it's back to normal and I'm having to repeat everything I say time and time again, it's really frustrating and annoying.

So is wearing a hearing aid. Really, really annoying. Lots of people have to turn them down or take them out to have hearing breaks.

He's managed for years without aids, he may never adapt to using them.

How are you planning on adapting to communicate with him without the aids working?

I would love to learn sign language but unfortunately I am one of the thalidomide survivors and have very short arms and only a few fingers so it's impossible for me, my partner is almost 62 as I am, and has learned to lip read but when he answers he mumbles, this is because he's turned the hearing aid down so far that he can hear himself but nobody else can hear him, to be honest if it wasn't for me insisting he went and had hearing and eye tests, he would be completely deaf by now. He has actually walked out in front of a bus because he had the volume so low he couldn't hear it coming, so I'm also frightened he will be involved in a bad accident one day because of this.

Also because I'm not able to sign, having the hearing aid is really important for us to keep on talking to each other.

Usually the hearing aid is seen as very important by the non-deaf family member. He might not feel the same way. Some people are fully or profoundly deaf with or without aids, not all can sign even if they are deaf.

If he does want it to work, then there are different sorts of aid he can try. Going private would give far more options. Is he suitable for an implant? It's major life changing surgery, he may not be suitable or want to go down that route.

He has to want it to work though. For me, aids are more bother than they are worth. I adapt my life to not need them. I'm single, but I wouldn't be wearing them to make a partners life easier for them.

It's not about wearing aids to make life easier for someone else. It's to make a relationship easier for both of you. Tbh if you feel it's not your responsibility to contribute to the success of a relationship and see all effort on your part as something not worth doing as it is simply to make it easier for the other person then perhaps you are better off remaining single.

What's his level of hearing in his hearing war? He could see if he's a candidate for a cochlear implant.

Yes my point exactly. If you aren't willing to work together to make it work, then it's pointless.

However, the person who has been deaf for 62 years and only used aids for the 30 months of the relationship, may not be the only one that needs to adapt. They have managed their life for 60 years without aids.

Hearing aids do not work for all. They do not correct hearing to normal. They can cause a lot of pain and irritation.

On the other hand, getting aids or implants is life changing for some.

It's fine to decide you don't want to be in a relationship with a deaf or hard of hearing person that doesn't use them how you wish them to. However, if you want to communicate of have a relationship with someone, then you may need to adapt your way if communicating. There are a lot of families and partners out there who think they can demand how they will communicate with the deaf person. It is frustrating for both sides.

Its no different to refusing to be with an amputee that refuses to use prosthetics due to constant infections/pain, or a blind person who refuses to get a guide dog...
You can be ableist, but you won't have a good relationship with that person.

Its not always the person with the disability that needs to make allowances for the person without.

I have similar hearing loss in one ear. I wear a hearing aid in the other. It’s exhausting trying to get on with every day family life.

I cannot hear at a family dinner table if more than one person is talking. Doesn’t even need to be loudly just a backdrop of chat and cutlery and I’m screwed. Background music, or the dishwasher running I might as well have ear plugs in. Eating out is not enjoyable at all anymore.

I need people to look at me when speaking not only to make it clearer to hear but also so I can lip read (not taught but I need to see lips).

In a heated conversation I often miss little verbal noises or cues meaning I can interrupt or speak over someone without meaning to.

I think you need to sit down with your DH and try to speak with him about how he’s finding life with his hearing loss and what frustrates him, and how anything might be changed to help. I’m frustrated, exhausted and overwhelmed most days and need the support of my friends and family. It doesn’t sound like you are supporting him really

Because it's a completely different language, different grammar, different structure, different syntax. One that completely changes how you act, as your normal gestures having to be suppressed in favour of clear movements and shapes that you have to be able to see and understand (with age related hearing, there's nothing stopping your eyesight also deteriorating at the same time - and if you've got shortsightedness compounded by age related changes that mean reading glasses, odds are that somebody signing can be simultaneously too near and too far away to be able to see them clearly - varifocals aren't always a solution). And then you also need the other person to learn it as well, and their ability to cope with such a new language and means of communicating visually also varies.

It's been hard enough to convey to DP over more than a decade that actually, I can't hear you. Which means please do not attempt to tell me stuff over the sound of TV, laptop, running taps, the washing machine on spin, when you're in the next room or at night when the light is off and I'm laying on my functioning ear with an earphone in the other one to try and block out the incessant HSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSsswhistleHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSclickclickclicketyclickSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS in the hope that I might be able to go to sleep. And if I do realise that you're making sounds that might be directed at me/the cat/your phone/the universe in general, wake up fully with the effort of trying to hear, sit up and turn to face you, asking you to please say it again because I didn't hear any of it, DON'T FUCKING ROLL OVER AND START MUTTERING SOMETHING LIKE fh,flhfhkhkhhjneverlistenanywayfjhlafdhv hafhaohfbotheroha BECAUSE I MIGHT HAVE TO KILL YOU.

It's even more frustrating for the deaf person.

As well as exhausting, isolating and dehumanising.

To make yourself easier to understand - use gestures, expressions and enunciate clearly.

Hearing aids are not the answer. Neither is learning a whole new language. Be kind and patient.

For me, it's because I really don't need to learn sign language as I can speak well and have conversations. Never had a need to learn it although I've congenital hearing loss.

I'm also surrounded by people who don't have hearing loss and who communicate orally. It's a big effort to learn sign language and to communicate with....nobody at the end of it as well. So, again no reason to learn sign language.

It comes down to personal need and your living environment. At the end of the day, I'm also not interested. Using speech, lipreading and listening can have its drawbacks, but I find it more beneficial than not.

IIRC, vast majority of people do not have congenital hearing loss. Most with hearing loss have acquired hearing loss, usually later in life. Again, little reason for them to learn sign language from their perspective.

It's not the same as your situation and there's a lot of variance within hearing loss plus individuals. Each person usually works out what is best for them for that reason. What works for one doesn't work for another. That's the reality.

His deafness is irrelevant.

He’s a knob.

Get rid of him and protect your suicidal children from him for fuck’s sake.

This. I have suffered from hearing loss since my early thirties (I am 44) and it is depressing how people think you can choose to manage it. At best, it will continue at this level. At worst, it will continue decline. I can usually spot the people who will take the time to face me and speak clearly to me, and those who mumble, talk fast and then get frustrated with me, as if it is something I can control but choose not to.

However, as PP have said, hearing loss has nothing to do with being insensitive and unkind. That is something else entirely.

I know it sounds a bit selfish but in the circumstances a hearing aid is important to him and myself, he has gone private and as I said he's broken 3 £2000 hearing aids through fiddling with them.
It is frustrating and although he is a suitable candidate for an implant, I think he's a bit scared to go down that road , as we both had a lot of probing and stuff done to us when we were kids, because we are both thalidomide survivors. He hates hospitals so I'm afraid we will probably have to just soldier on.

I'm similar to @freshstartahead in that I am completely deaf in one ear, reduced hearing/ certain pitches in the other and recognise the dinner table description well! It is exhausting trying to listen hard and follow what's going on and sometimes I don't have the energy and I fill the blanks myself. Most of the time it works.

What completely throws me is when I ask a question and get an answer that's not a potential answer I was expecting - my brain/ ears were expecting a yes/ no, for example, and instead I get a sentence I can't hear or decipher as I wasn't primed for it .

OP, some of his behaviours may be coping mechanisms he's developed but the loud suicide conversation is not acceptable. He can't allow his need for loud speech to potentially upset someone in a situation and it is no excuse for a complete lack of self awareness.

I've had impaired hearing since being a child, but only realised much later in life. I could never make out lyrics in songs and couldn't understand what people were saying in loud environments such as pubs, clubs, etc., so I started to withdraw from social activities. It was in my 40s when I started to realise I had hearing problems and have been wearing hearing aids for 15-20 years now. As lots of people have said, they don't "cure" your hearing impairment at all. They make things louder - that's it really. If your hearing wasn't clear previously, hearing aids won't suddenly make it clearer, just louder. And they pick up and amplify ALL noises, so cutlery scrapping a plate, clocks ticking, hiss/hum of fans, ovens, kettles, etc. "Normal" life becomes irritating and painful. The "ping" of a microwave can go right through you. That's why wearers often remove them or turn them down - you need to do that to make life bearable! For me, there's only been a marginal improvement when it comes to social occasions as it's still basically impossible to hear a specific person when there are several people talking or background music etc. What annoys me about OH is that he will talk facing away from me, or from another room, etc., but background noise (which he's oblivious to) will drown out what he says, so he gets annoyed when he has to repeat - I have to constantly remind him to actually talk TO me rather than the wall or hallway/landing and he just retorts with either "turn you aid up then" or patronisingly "is it time for another hearing test"!