Why it pays to LISTEN to your PARTNER
IT was when I asked my husband to repeat himself for the fourth time in the space of an hour that he finally lost the plot. ‘For god’s sake!’ he shouted. ‘Can you PLEASE get something done about your hearing?’
That comment did not need to be repeated. And his frustration simply added to my own – ‘You’re mumbling!’ I growled, while turning up the TV a further notch.
Of course, I knew he was right. My hearing issue was causing havoc. I had been diagnosed with a condition called otosclerosis in my early 20s, where the bone forms over the eardrum, but for years I had tried to ignore it. I battled on, struggling to hear in my work as a journalist, in social settings, even at home. Crowded restaurants and bars were particularly difficult.
And then it started to affect my relationship. My husband was growing increasingly cross at having to constantly repeat himself, and this frustration was not helped by my oblivion when one of our small children cried at night.
‘What?’ I’d say in my defence, as he reached for coffee, blearyeyed after the fourth sleepless night in a row. ‘I didn’t hear them!’
I was 38. I wasn’t supposed to be hard of hearing, right?
Well, not quite. Hearing loss among younger people is more common than you might think, with a particular increase in tinnitus, a ringing in the ear, caused by trauma or excessive use of headphones and earbuds.
Recently, GMTV’s Susanna Reid spoke out about her decade-long battle with the condition, which presented itself following the birth of her second son Finn, who is now 13 years old.
‘“My tinnitus is so loud right now,” she tweeted. “The noise you used to hear when TV programming finished at the end of the day? That. In my head.”
Music moguls Will I Am and Chris Martin are also vocal about their hearing issues, with Martin revealing that his tinnitus almost ended his music career.
‘Looking after your ears is unfortunately something you don’t think about until there’s a problem,’ he has said, and there in lies the rub — most hearing loss presents itself gradually, over a period of at least ten years, with sufferers taking action only when it reaches a point whre it’s impacting their lives.
Will I Am finds the only way to ease his discomfort is to surround himself with as much noise as possible – so he doesn’t hear the constant ringing.
Although my hearing problem is not technically tinnitus, it certainly bears similar hallmarks. I have continuous white noise or fuzziness in my right ear, which, while handy when it comes to aiding sleep, is not ideal in my busy everyday life.
It’s a sensation that Simon Dunne from Dublin is more than familiar with. He was also 38 when he sought a solution for hearing loss in his left ear. And like myself, he had struggled for years with it. The source of his problem was more difficult to pinpoint – although it was likely to have stemmed from trauma during a skydive in his early 20s, he was also a DJ, which may have exacerbated his condition.
LIKE me, and countless other people who struggle with hearing loss, he figured he would just have to live with it.
But when his inability to hear properly started to impact on his marriage, he realised he had to do something.
‘My wife was starting to get frustrated with me,’ he admits. ‘If I was in a busy room I just couldn’t hear. I’d struggle to make conversation and have lean in to hear. It was even affecting our date nights – if we were at the cinema and my wife started to whisper into my ear about the movie, I couldn’t hear her at all,’ he says.
Simon was experiencing not just hearing loss, but everything that came with it – a lack of confidence, fatigue and even isolation. It gets to the stage where going out to meet friends on a weekend is the most tiring thing in the world. I was constantly mishearing, trying to make out what people were saying, and was paranoid that people would think I was being daft, or downright rude.
This feeling of isolation is a really common side effect of the ailment, says audiologist Denise Kane. “Hearing loss can leave people feeling really lonely. Often they have to ask people to repeat themselves which can make them feel awkward and uncomfortable, or that it looks like they don’t understand things, when in fact they quite simply cannot hear.’
Simon’s description of when he was finally fitted with a hearing aid is one I can relate to well. The clarity of sound, something which had been absent in my life for so long, was back – although it took a few days of wearing it to get used to this new world.
‘I could hear footsteps, and even people chewing, which I actually didn’t mind,’ he laughs. ‘I actually sat in McDonald’s and listened to the world go by. I couldn’t believe it. I’m studying to be a primary school teacher now as I can actually hear the students at the top of the class,’ he says. ‘And my wife is a lot happier!’ For me, the biggest revelation about wearing a hearing aid —which is practically invisible to the naked eye — is how it has enhanced my life. My confidence in work, social life, and yes, my relationship – have all blossomed for the better. Sometimes, people, silence
is simply NOT golden… ÷SPECSAVERS offer hearing aid packages from a starting price of €750, and also free hearing tests. For further information or to make an appointment visit specsavers.ie/hearing