Hearing wife to hoh husband

I wasn't trying to end the conversation. I just wanted everyone to know how much I appreciate your time and advice. As he was growing up no one ever acknowledged his hearing loss. He was always treated like a hearing person. He has learned not to communicate how he feels because no one in his family communicates. I do put a lot of blame on myself for not trying harder to realize how bad the situation is getting. Since he usually refuses to talk about it I always just let it go. He has pretended for so long that he is fine that I guess I believed him. I blame myself for not seeing what was happening. I'm angry at myself and his family for treating it so cavalier. Im trying to be more proactive and communicate to him that this is now happening and we have to deal with it now! No more pretending!!
 
welcome to alldeaf, your husband's life sounds pretty hard so hang in there and let him be free like a bird :)
 
ChristiLouLou said:
I wasn't trying to end the conversation. I just wanted everyone to know how much I appreciate your time and advice. As he was growing up no one ever acknowledged his hearing loss. He was always treated like a hearing person. He has learned not to communicate how he feels because no one in his family communicates. I do put a lot of blame on myself for not trying harder to realize how bad the situation is getting. Since he usually refuses to talk about it I always just let it go. He has pretended for so long that he is fine that I guess I believed him. I blame myself for not seeing what was happening. I'm angry at myself and his family for treating it so cavalier. Im trying to be more proactive and communicate to him that this is now happening and we have to deal with it now! No more pretending!!
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Damn Christi, I wish I was in your area so I could befriend your husband. I've been there and done that. Maybe a good idea might be to get him this book: On the Fence: The Hidden World of the Hard of Hearing by Mark Drolsbaugh Assistive and Hearing Aids Products - Deaf, Hearing Loss, Sign Language
It's all about dealing with being HOH, in an interesting way(meaning it's not those boring Hearing Health 101 pamphelts your audi foists on you)
 
deafdyke said:
Damn Christi, I wish I was in your area so I could befriend your husband. I've been there and done that. Maybe a good idea might be to get him this book: On the Fence: The Hidden World of the Hard of Hearing by Mark Drolsbaugh Assistive and Hearing Aids Products - Deaf, Hearing Loss, Sign Language
It's all about dealing with being HOH, in an interesting way(meaning it's not those boring Hearing Health 101 pamphelts your audi foists on you)
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Thank you so much for the link to this book!!! We both spend a lot of time reading so this is perfect!
 
deafdyke said:
Damn Christi, I wish I was in your area so I could befriend your husband. I've been there and done that. Maybe a good idea might be to get him this book: On the Fence: The Hidden World of the Hard of Hearing by Mark Drolsbaugh Assistive and Hearing Aids Products - Deaf, Hearing Loss, Sign Language
It's all about dealing with being HOH, in an interesting way(meaning it's not those boring Hearing Health 101 pamphelts your audi foists on you)
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Did you have the same experience growing up?? I would love to hear your story!
 
ChristiLouLou said:
Did you have the same experience growing up?? I would love to hear your story!
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Very much so. I thought I was the ONLY HOH kid in the world. Hated being HOH.....the family treated me like I was essentially hearing, without thinking that maybe I needed exposure to kids like me, and that the hearing world wasn't all it's cracked up to be. I wish experts and pro oral/inclusion/assimunlate into the hearing world "experts" would understand that trying to assimulate kids with various and sundry issues into the greater world just doesn't work. We need exposure to other kids like us, and we need experiances with other kids like us too. It shouldn't be an "either or" experience.
 
DD's experience above is what my husband grew up with. Birth mother had Rubella. Currently using bilateral digital aids. He is oral/mainstreamed and never was exposed to the Deaf community until he learned about through me when I became aware in college. In college I worked with Deaf kids and staff in a recreational program.
There are times when my hub doesn't enjoy large gathering either.
There are a lot of things in our relationship we just work with/around.
I'm 40 and started losing my hearing some years ago.
 
Christi - ((hugs))

Sorry for what you and your hubby are going through. Others have touched on it, though not very gently (eek!), that there is/was definitely dysfunction in your husband's family with regard to his hearing loss. I don't feel like it's that his family didn't accept it. It seems like they accepted it at face value but didn't feel like anything needed to be done with it. Kind of like, "He's deaf. Let him be." No wonder he doesn't know how to deal with it as an adult.

As scary as it will be for him (and probably for you, too), I do agree with those who suggest getting out into the Deaf community and seeing other deaf adults. Sometimes that's the perfect remedy to realize that life CAN be normal with a hearing loss.

As far as the social, aside from the obvious notes that others have already said about the difficulties of deaf people among a hearing crowd, some people just don't like to go out. I'm all for socializing, but I prefer to stay home where I can sit on my comfortable couch, eat my comfortable food, watch my comfortable TV shows, etc.

I do think that no matter what, if your husband doesn't want to deal with his deafness, you're not going to be able to make him.
 
dereksbicycles said:
My Grandma has asked me to go to Passover Sedar with her. I declined. I'm not going to sit with a group of people who hardly signs.

I had ex girlfriend who enjoyed going to movie theater. I let her go with her family. I decided to not go.

It'll not kill him to not go. Just find something else to use with your or his time.
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I would had gone just to spend some time with my Grandma. I only knew one grandparent and it was my dad's mother. I was so up set I was not allowed to go to her funeral as my parent thought a nine yo was to young! I would loves to be able to have Passover with my family again. Happy Passover!
 
whatdidyousay! said:
I would had gone just to spend some time with my Grandma. I only knew one grandparent and it was my dad's mother. I was so up set I was not allowed to go to her funeral as my parent thought a nine yo was to young! I would loves to be able to have Passover with my family again. Happy Passover!
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Thank you. The same to you. Happy Passover!!
 
<aside from original thread> - Chag Sameach, derek and whatdidyousay!

as far as OP/topic....

I've heard of that book DD mentioned and would like to read it too.

My husband also sees ASL as a "last resort" , as christielou mentions. Based on what I've learned here, I think it's the Hearing/oral and pathological mindset that affects deaf individuals at an early age....and hearing too. Affects people directly and indirectly.

Hubby and I sometimes use a version of home signs here and there. He feels it would be too difficult now for him to learn ASL for himself but says he would do it for me "if necessary" <I'm losing my hearing>
 
Let me tell you something --- its one thing to wear hearing aid all the time and be able to recognize the sounds and its another to suddenly hear sounds for first time. Is his hearing test showing different reading for both ears? if so, maybe it better to put HA in his better ear and keep volume low for awhile to get used to it. he can increase volume anytime when he doesnt experience dizzy spells or headaches, etc.

I grew up with HA's but there was a time I NO HA's for a few years due to budget. When I finally got new HA's nothing was familar and it was painfull to wear. Took me over a year to get used to it and then know some sounds I missed. Same goes for when an incredible loud titaninus hit me and I couldn't hear a darn thing for 1.5 years. Took awhile to get over that too.

You can't force him, he has to want to wear it and its only time that will help, not you or anyone else in the world.
 
ShilohBuchman said:
Christi - ((hugs))

Sorry for what you and your hubby are going through. Others have touched on it, though not very gently (eek!), that there is/was definitely dysfunction in your husband's family with regard to his hearing loss. I don't feel like it's that his family didn't accept it. It seems like they accepted it at face value but didn't feel like anything needed to be done with it. Kind of like, "He's deaf. Let him be." No wonder he doesn't know how to deal with it as an adult.

As scary as it will be for him (and probably for you, too), I do agree with those who suggest getting out into the Deaf community and seeing other deaf adults. Sometimes that's the perfect remedy to realize that life CAN be normal with a hearing loss.

As far as the social, aside from the obvious notes that others have already said about the difficulties of deaf people among a hearing crowd, some people just don't like to go out. I'm all for socializing, but I prefer to stay home where I can sit on my comfortable couch, eat my comfortable food, watch my comfortable TV shows, etc.

I do think that no matter what, if your husband doesn't want to deal with his deafness, you're not going to be able to make him.
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Shiloh, sorry it's not that there was dysfunction. That was (and actually very often IS still) the way that hearing parents are told to bring up dhh (or other kids with relatively mild disabilities) The attitude is that ALL they need is to assimulate into mainstream society and there's no value in disability stuff....Irritates the eff out of me. ....I wish those experts could experience what it's like to expend so much energy on faking it, and still not being a full part of mainstream society, even thou we talk, or use our residual vision or otherwise are limited to "mainstream" functioning things.......
 
deafdyke said:
Shiloh, sorry it's not that there was dysfunction. That was (and actually very often IS still) the way that hearing parents are told to bring up dhh (or other kids with relatively mild disabilities) The attitude is that ALL they need is to assimulate into mainstream society and there's no value in disability stuff....Irritates the eff out of me. ....I wish those experts could experience what it's like to expend so much energy on faking it, and still not being a full part of mainstream society, even thou we talk, or use our residual vision or otherwise are limited to "mainstream" functioning things.......
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I know what you mean. It drives me batty, too.

The way I look at it is that just because it was/is "normal" to teach a hearing parent there's not value in it, that doesn't make it right. That's what I mean by dysfunction.

Regardless of what one calls it, you and I agree - it's a shame.
 
ShilohBuchman said:
I know what you mean. It drives me batty, too.

The way I look at it is that just because it was/is "normal" to teach a hearing parent there's not value in it, that doesn't make it right. That's what I mean by dysfunction.

Regardless of what one calls it, you and I agree - it's a shame.
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Can't like this ENOUGH!!!!!!! We need to stop hyperfixtating on trying to make kids with physical and sensory disabilities as Normal As Possible. They deserve a full toolbox and a full range of options.
Yes, it's good for a dhh kid to have oral skills....but it shouldn't be their only tool in the toolbox. Too often parents think "oh my kid doesn't " need" ASL or specialized schools....they can just learn to hear and speak.....They don't understand that just b/c a dhh kid can fake it, that they might not find other alternative methods helpful or that the other methods might provide a key to doing REALLY well. Like say if the kid was limited to oral only, they could have the language level to read Frog and Toad or the Kids of the Polk Street School, but if they added ASL, they could function at a Harvard level.....especially socially and emotionally. Even the oral superstars very often have signficent social-emotional issues due to not fitting in with the hearing world!
 
ChristiLouLou said:
I want to be told what it is we are dealing with. He has to be made to look at what's going on. I know there isn't anything anyone can do. But it also makes me angry to realize that he was never prepared for this. His entire family ignored it for so long that he learned to ignore it as well. The only thing I have ever been told by him or his mother is that he got really sick when he was 2 and then they noticed he couldn't hear anymore. He has pretended for so long this isn't happening that he isn't able to handle it. I feel like such an idiot for knowing nothing and putting him in situations that made him uncomfortable. I feel horrible for not being ready for this! But how can I be ready if he's not?
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That was the story of my life. I was born with a bilateral profound deafness but I was treated like a hearing person all of my life. Also, it was expected of me to be as hearing as much as I can so I grew up thinking ASL was for deaf people who were low functioning and that I didn't need it. At 25 years old, I started learning it and boy did it change my life for the better!
 
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