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Don't enable your spouse
Posted by Roseann B. Kiefer, BC-HIS on April 25, 2022
What is your health worth? Is it worth getting your hearing tested and making that step if you need to wear hearing instruments? What about your spouse? Are their needs as important as yours?
Are you both as active as the other? Would you say that each of your memory capabilities is the same? Do you both want to live life to the fullest…to carry on meaningful conversations with others on a personal level and at work or in volunteer situations?
You should ponder these questions. It is unlikely that both spouses have the same hearing loss. It is unlikely that both spouses have the same cognitive function. It is also unlikely that both spouses have the same motivations in life. What is important to one person may not be as important to the other.
Don't enable your spouse
Because your hearing isn’t the same… the person with the poorer hearing will enable the other person to “get by” without doing anything to correct their hearing and protect their brain. For example one of you can’t understand the tv... so it is turned up so that the person with the poorer hearing can understand it better. Now, the other person whose hearing is not as bad may hear it better. Thus, you have enabled your spouse not to do anything about their hearing. Perhaps at restaurants, you repeat to the other what is being said by the waitress or your friends… thus you are just enabling. Instead, maybe you should say, “you are not understanding... we need to get this problem fixed.”
How active are you? Do you socialize? Perhaps you volunteer or maybe even still are working. How difficult is it that you can’t understand what others are saying? Soon you just will start to withdraw from difficult situations. Life will not be as enjoyable. Your brain will start beginning to shrink… you may start the process of cognitive decline. It simply can be better. It is easy to correct your hearing loss. It is easy to ward off cognitive decline. Correcting your hearing loss is the NUMBER ONE way to help prevent Alzheimer’s! Number ONE! Not hearing or understanding people is a sad situation to be in for all parties involved… especially when it is preventable. Correcting your hearing loss is one of the top four ways to prevent FALLING! Again… how active are you… may not be if you take a bad fall. Hearing loss that is determined to be even just a “mild” loss will increase your risk of falling 10-fold and cognitive decline by almost 70% if not corrected properly. Those are big numbers.
What is important to you? For me… my ability to stay active and engaged is my number one concern. Help yourself to live your best life. To Hear Better Is To Live Better!
