DH angry with my hearing loss

[IamMachine]

This is my first post, so please be gentle!

I was diagnosed with hearing impairment a few years ago and given two hearing aids.
I can hear okay in quiet environments, but I really struggle with background noise, even with my hearing aids (they amplify everything).
I’ve never really gotten used to the hearing aids. I don’t really wear them much. I still struggle to hear with them in certain situations and they get quite painful after an hour, or so. Also, I’m only 31 and they are visible (NHS basics).
‘D’H doesn’t understand any of this, he seems to think I should wear them anyway, so he doesn’t have to repeat himself.
I should point out, it’s not that often that he has to. And only once or twice when he does.
Two incidents recently have really upset me.
The first was at a very busy, noisy theme park. He snapped at me nastily when I asked him to repeat himself.
The second was driving home from a boating holiday. DD2 needed the toilet and, as we were near MIL, he asked me to phone her from the car to ask if we could nip in.
I really struggle with the phone, in any situation. I’d have no hope of hearing a word in a noisy car, so I said I’d rather not. He angrily threw his phone back in the pocket thingy (behind the handbrake). I explained why and just got a sarcastic “okaaay!” in response. He was in a mood for ages after that.
I tried to talk to him about both times last night, but he’s clearly not sorry and just thinks I should wear my hearing aids. Although even if I did wear them frequently, there’s no way I would take them to a theme park or on a boat!
I should also point out that he does often get angry with me about it, these two instances are just the most recent.
So AIBU to want some patience from him? And understanding that hearing aids aren’t for everyone, nor are they a ‘cure’?

Sorry this is long, I needed to get this off my chest as I’m very upset about it and feel ‘lesser’.

You don't need new hearing aids, you need a new DH!!

DH and I are getting to 'that age' and I've noticed that his hearing isn't quite what it used to be. For myself, I have a minor mobility problem which means DH has to 'adjust' his stride to mine and walk slower and with smaller steps than he normally would. Yes, it can be frustrating to repeat myself, even once a day. And I expect he feels impatient at times when it takes longer to walk somewhere. But we love each other and it's just what you do when your beloved partner has limitations.

Go and get your HAs adjusted by all means. But do it for your comfort and because you, yourself, want to hear better. Not because he's rude and inconsiderate.

How you deal with him is for you to decide. Personally if I had a DH who wouldn't accommodate my disabilities I'd kick him to the kerb.

I think this is because nearly all health conditions cause more annoyance / discomfort to the sufferer than to the people around them, whereas for hearing loss the reverse is true.

WTAF? Seriously? You honestly think hearing loss causes more discomfort to the people around than to the person affected. Did you choose to have an empathy bipass or were you born that selfish?

I am a bit hard of hearing, in my right ear mostly, but I can hear reasonably well, IF people talk clearly,,which many people don't, they just mumble. My son gets annoyed with me,saying he is fed up with repeating himself with me, but he is a mumbler.!

Several people in the pub where I sometimes go for a wine,are mumblers,and also mostly looking at their phones when they talk anyway.. Everyone is always telling me to get a hearing aid, which I intend to do,when I have priced them up.

But it seems that it is always my fault for having a hearing problem,and not other people for not speaking properly. I always joke,and say,if I was partially sighted,or even blind, they would not help me across a road safely ha ha.

Oh I empathise with you so much.

Had bacterial meningitis in my twenties that left me with significant hearing loss (but I am alive!). I have been to audiologists left right and centre and ENT consultants by the bucketload.

Have tried (I am sure by now), every hearing aid on the planet, and none of them worked. The last audiologist I attended seems to think there is nerve damage, so hearing aids are not going to make much difference, lordy lordy.

Anyway, as hearing loss has been my constant companion for many years, friends and family have adapted and we treat it with great good humour most of the time. Like you, I can hear ok when I can look at the person speaking, but background noise, forget it. So I have tried to adapt. I have remote bluetooth earphones for my phone. Wireless earphones for the TV, and just get on with it.

I now have Meniere's disease which has affected the bad ear very badly. Things can only get better!

I find if you explain to people that you have a hearing difficulty, they are very kind and accommodating. I don't worry about it anymore now. To heck with people who get annoyed. They are often frustrated at having to repeat things. Their problem, not mine.

Best of luck. There is probably more to your story, but wish you well.

Sounds like he doesn't think the traditional "in sickness and in health" part of the wedding applies to him...

He sounds like a knob tbh

My dh would never ever treat me like an inconvenience or a nuisance. Don't put up with it

I’m going to leave the thread now. Thank you for the helpful, kind replies. I’ve got lots to look into now.
It seems hearing loss is a disability that, for a large group of people, is okay to get annoyed at. I don’t have the energy or MH to argue with these people. I’d just like to ask that you treat it with the patience you would with any other disability - it’s no fun for us either.

I lived with someone who had a hearing aid for years, not a DH but a friend. I didn't find it as frustrating as some others seem to find it. I just thought it was much worse for her and frustrating that she can't hear properly. she would give answers that were clearly incorrect and you had to repeat sentences but she was very kind and intelligent and interesting which balanced it out. It sounds to me that your DH just has no patience. Hearing aids are not like glasses, they don't solve the problem. Do your children get annoyed with you? your family? your friends or is it just your DH?

My hubby took a while to get used to his hearing aids. Please go back to the clinic if you are not getting on very well with them. You can see he is wearing them and they are nhs ones. Just a small bit in his ear and a small bit behind his ear. Sometimes he still asks what Ive said and I have to check he has them in because I can’t see them very well. Ask if you can have different ones if the look of them bothers you. Another thing he was told is you won’t be able to hear so well without them once you get used to them because your brain adjusts to having them in. You can turn them down. My hubby turns his down if he goes into a supermarket because he can’t stand all the noise.I hope you can get it sorted.

But it seems that it is always my fault for having a hearing problem,and not other people for not speaking properly.

If you are the only one that can't hear them though it isn't the case that they are not speaking properly. I can sympathise with your son getting annoyed when you say that he is mumbling as I remember my father saying that to me whereas noone else had a problem. He was just in denial about his hearing loss.

Just wanted to say thanks again for kind responses. People mumbling is my biggest issue, tbh!
I was thinking of our vows just last night, wondering how many more he will just ignore! Seems to be fine as long as it doesn’t annoy him too much.
We will be having a talk when he’s calm.
Thanks again

I am another who can see both sides. I've knows a number of people who have needed hearing aids for whom it's taken some time to get used to them.

But I suspect it's effecting him more than you think. Ds had very bad glue ear. At times his hearing was down to 10%. He taught himself to lipread, watched tv with subtitles etc. I, nor he would have realised how bad his hearing was if he hadn't been tested. He responded if I said his name (or chocolate) he reacted accordingly to noise outside etc. There was nothing I would have picked up.
However when he'd had grommets put in and could hear normally, both me and him noticed the difference almost immediately. Two things stood out to me: One was his leaping in some autumn leaves. "Mummy," he said with surprise, "leaves didn't crunch last year."
Another was he came home from school very excited. "Guess what, did you show sh and ch are different sounds?"

The car thing I'm kind of with your dh. I'm guessing he's driving so couldn't do it. So by refusing to do it, you're leaving it entirely on him to do it. So he's got to pull over and then do it.
Dh has at time an awful habit of if I ask him to do something he doesn't want to do when I'm busy (like driving) of saying "oh I don't need to do that" or "that isn't necessary". It is probably his most irritating habit. It means that in your scenario, I need to look for somewhere I can pull over, switch the engine off, do the phone call, then get the car started again and pull back into traffic. I would be irritated with him, because it would probably take 5 extra minutes, which if you've got a child needing the toilet may be a wet result.
I'd find the response "I'd rather not" especially irritating because it's saying you're choosing not to.
If you'd said "I don't think I'd be able to hear the phone with the traffic noise" then he might have reacted differently.

I suggest though, if you won't use the phone, if there's situations where you might need to, then you'd be better to drive.

Family and friends are great about it. Kids are loud enough to not need to repeat themselves

I think this is because nearly all health conditions cause more annoyance / discomfort to the sufferer than to the people around them, whereas for hearing loss the reverse is true.

What a thoughtless comment. While it might be frustrating for me when DH doesn't hear me it really isn't better for him. I hate seeing him being isolated by his hearing loss, although thankfully this isn't quite as bad now.

Well, we could have pulled into a pub or petrol station so not exactly leaving him with no options? I can never hear on the phone and he knows this.
Anyway, really am leaving the thread now, just wanted to clear that up!

@IamMachine I totally feel for you, your hearing isn't improving and there's not a lot you can do to improve it. It must be very frustrating.

Not to sound insensitive but do you think perhaps you and your DH could learn sign language together? He may become less frustrated if he's busy focusing on doing something else I.e using his hands to talk, and conversations (whilst not driving cause he'll be preoccupied) may become easier and more comfortable between you both.

My dear old Dad had terrible hearing, and to be honest his constant refusal to wear his hearing aid, or seek a better alternative (he could easily afford a private digital one) used to drive me up the wall. Having any kind of conversation was difficult at times and although I tried to be patient, I did get cross sometimes as he clearly wasn't addressing the issue. We have recently been through similar with FIL. Loads of us told him his hearing was awful, it got to the point where he couldn't have any discussion with the kids as he just couldn't catch what they were saying. He's at last been and got a hearing aid and it's much better but he was in complete denial until then.

I think the problem is however nice a person you are, having a conversation with someone who can't hear well is really hard work, the repetition is annoying, the having to shout out what you are saying can be embarrassing and if the person does that thing where they try to guess what you've said it can feel pointles.

The denial that some people can get into over their hearing doesnt help, no DGF, the youth of today aren't more softly spoken than they were 20 years ago.

If you at least try to use the hearing aids and see if there is anything else that can help it will show him you are trying. It does sound like he could do with being more patient.

I'm dotty I don't have much comment on your OH apart from thinking he's being a git, but I wear glasses and hearing aids, and wanted to encourage you to go back to the people who fitted yours. I have standard NHS ones and they're comfortable and discrete but only after i went back 2-3 times for adjustments and sometimes the people who you are dealing with to fit them can be hit or miss. The length and shape of the pipe and size of the dome in your ear make a massive difference to comfort and how discrete they are - mine are not quite long enough at the moment so the battery bit doesn't sit behind my ear well enough - but I took that over the too long ones or dealing with a specific receptionist again I can easily hide it under my hair up or down anyway. I also found too big a dome and it's painful, too small and it moves about and irritates. They also soften a bit in use.

The other thing is to get them to review the programs they've set it up with, as there is a real art to it apparently. If you tell them you're getting too much background noise for conversations they can put a setting in just for that - I have that in one ear (don't ask, I got each ear fitted at different times and see what I mean about the audiology assistants who fit and adjust them being a bit hit and miss?? Just go back until you get a good one) and it makes a massive difference to hearing conversations, especially in restaurants. I also think you have to persevere quite a bit with getting used to the feeling of wearing them, and I swear that after a few months your body rewires something and you get better at distinguishing foreground and background noise again. It was much easier learning to tolerate and adjust to wearing glasses for me, but you will adjust to these too, with perseverance.

Good luck, with both the partner and your hearing aids!

I'm not dotty okay I am ... , I'm SORRY (stupid autocorrect)

@IamMachine much sympathy. I have hearing loss tho mine is mostly age related (I'm 63). And my other half (69) does get annoyed with me not hearing and him having to repeat stuff and then I get annoyed with him for mumbling and he says everyone else hears him fine!

How are you with the TV? It's pretty much out of bounds for me because so many actors mumble - tho not all! Which leads me to believe it isn't entirely down to me. We don't get any kind of hearing aids on the NHS in the area where I live (North Staffs) so I've not gone down that route yet. If I'm in a restaurant or cafe I do sometimes ask them to turn the music down if I'm in company as I can't hear very well and they're usually quite understanding.

If you're under 40, or even 50, I have this advice - take care of your hearing! Once it's gone you can't get it back and hearing aids only go so far. I'm a glasses wearer and they make all the difference. I also have front dentures, ditto. They are fine. But my ears are the bane of my life.

All that said, it seems to me you may have other issues with your DH. We do get angry with people for having disabilities and just for growing old! How many of us - come on, be honest! - have got angry with parents or grandparents for ageing? It's not rational but we're not entirely rational beings. It's like a loss. My partner has Parkinson's and though it isn't , thank the lord, too bad and isn't progressing too aggressively, I get mad with him for not being who he once was. I try to contain it, rationalise it, accept it. But we're none of us saints.

Maybe you need relationship counselling? There is, it seems to me, more than hearing loss here - there is the loss of you are you were. And that could be the source of his anger? I'm just throwing out wild guesses here.

And fwiw I imagine you have the same NHS ones as me. I swore I was going private for more discrete ones until consultant convinced me to just try. I get on with these fine. My friends went straight to specsavers and was pleased with her really discrete ones she chose there. For £650 each. When we met up.. exactly the same make and model!

A friend of mine wears hearing aids daily we still have to repeat ourselves and she takes them off to use the phone due to feedback

@DonLass

DH happily wears glasses which to me are the same as hearing aids.

NO, these are not the same thing. You are showing your ignorance here. Hearing loss is complicated and not easily fixed with hearing aids and these can be very uncomfortable and even painful to wear. Be grateful you still have your own hearing.

OP - your DH is a twat.

Hi OP

I got my hearing aids when I was 32, my hearing loss was mild in my right ear and moderate in my left. They opted to give me one for wach ear as they didn't want my hearing to deteriorate quicker than it could have. My partner, now DH, used to get irritated with me all the time, I thought it was only a couple of occasions that he needed to correct me on (I am not saying it is the same for you but I assumed it was only a few at the time) but when I challenged him about his annoyance, he said thay sometimes he feels bad as do others around us that they have to keep correcting me and often don't say it, they felt guilty weirdly when they had to correct me. I explained about the hearing aids and why I didnt like to wear them, vanity for me was not an issue but I did not like the way they felt and I hated the sound as it was tinny not natural, it was hard to adjust, I got headaches too. My partner took me to a specialist so that we coukd buy those completely in the ear devices. The consultant explained why the headaches occured, how the brain loses the ability to understand certain sounds and therefore when people speak my brain has lost the ability to understand that sound. He told me my brain would learn the sounds again and only the hearing aids could help my brain do that, my brain would also need to adjust to a normal level of noise rather than the reduced amount. He also explained the link between hearing loss and early onset dementia. After he finished explaining all the medical stuff, he explained to my DH that the hearing aids were not a solution, that they would not give me the same type of hearing that my ears would have, lack of direction, recurring ear infections due to no air circulation, difficulty in noisy environments, not wearing them all the time and also the adjustment period. Partner came away conpletely baffled that what he thought he knew was so different to what he had just heard. We ultimately returned the hearing aids because it was just a stupid cost when the NHS were just doing the same job, I got used to them being behind my ear and soon didnt notice them anymore. Yes I go without them from time to time, I need to because my ears get infected otherwise, but DH is far more understanding now then he was before we saw the specialist.

You’re still catastrophizing about your disability being far less accepted than others. That is so untrue. I was on a thread yesterday, where we were discussing amongst other things about disabled people being almost hit and in one case mowed down by complete strangers for not crossing the road fast enough. I am physically disabled. The way my brother has treated me is chilling.

I’m glad you’re going to go back and try again. Be positive that at least there is help from the nhs for you. For me and many others there is none.