Deaf Hearing Couples

Here's our coverage of the deaf/hearing couples workshop at the SayWhatClub 2007 National Convention. It was a wonderful convention. Our full coverage begins here.

Introduction

This panel consisted of four couples, all of whom had been married for at least 25 years. In addition, the moderator was the hearing half of a deaf-hearing marriage, and she and her husband also added their thoughts. The couples will be referred to as A, B. C, D, and E, and the husbands and wives as H and W. Thus the husband of the third couple will be CH, and the wife of the fifth couple will be EW. The husband of couple A and E have hearing loss; the wife of couples B and C have hearing loss; both members of couple D have hearing loss.

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What did your family and friends say to encourage you or dissuade you from marrying a deaf or hard of hearing person?

This question didn't apply to some couples, because they were both hearing when they got married.
CH: My family was entirely supportive.
EW: My family wasn't supportive. My husband was several years older than I, and they wanted to know why I was marrying such an old man. Also, I was the first person in my family to go to college, so they thought I should marry a doctor or a lawyer.

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What frustrations did you face in your early days together?

AH: For me trying to hear in groups was the hardest thing. Eventually we just cut back on our social life and our group of friends.
AW: That wasn't so much an issue for me. I had friends of my own and I continued to see them.
BW: I've always been an extrovert and I suddenly became an introvert. It was just the opposite for BH. He had always been introverted and he had to become more extroverted.
CW: I found it very hard to try to hear, so I just tuned things out. Social functions were hard. I left work because I couldn't hear. Now that I have bilateral CIs, I'm hearing so well and getting back into things.
CH: It really curtailed our social life; I could see how uncomfortable she was. She thought others were discourteous, because they didn't converse with her. I thought the problem was partially because she became so withdrawn. I also didn't like having to answer the phone and the door all the time. It was hard for me to remember not to speak with my hand near my mouth. I struggled with that for a long time.
DW: It was hard when our kids were babies. We lived by a train track, and every time the train went by, the baby alert would go off.
DH: I had to use the phone at work. I had an amplified phone and a light to alert when the phone rang. But the light was too distracting to co-workers, so we had to take it out. It's better now with all the new technology. I use a speakerphone and that works pretty well.
EW: My husband grew up Deaf and signs. For the first 20 years I didn't sign, so that was pretty tough. I was a family person, and he didn't want to go to see my family, because he couldn't understand when everyone was talking. We had some big fights over that.

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Does the hearing spouse handle the communications, and does that create any problems? Are there control issues with that?

AH: I've done most of the communicating with the cars and other things. But as my hearing loss continued to decline, she has taken over more of the phone. I don't think there's a control issue.
AW: The car repairmen tend to take advantage of a woman, so we try to work together on that.
BW: Tom does the business calls, because I can't hear well on the phone. I do try to talk to our kids when they call.
CW: He used to handle the calls, because I couldn't hear. Now that I have CIs I'm doing more of my own calling.
DH: It's different for us because we both have hearing loss. We do the best we can and rely on each other. We both use the speakerphone and that works pretty well.
DW: At work we use email as much as possible.
EW: We had a TTY, but he used the hunt and peck method, so I did most of the TTY calls, because I was a lot faster. We got rid of the TTY and got a fax years ago. Now, of course, he uses video relay.

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Do you each have outside friends and interests? If so, what percentage?

AH: We have separate friends. Most of our social time together is with family.
AW: When I have friends over, he usually goes to another room.
BW: We do most social things together, except my involvement with the SayWhatClub.
CW: We have separate friends, but it has nothing to do with hearing loss. We also socialize together.
DW: I'd say 90% together, with family, friends, and church.
EW: Most of my social life is in the Deaf world, so it's mostly together.

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What was your relationship with your children like when they were growing up? Did hearing loss impact that?

AH: I don't think hearing loss had much impact on how we raised out kids.
BW: My 3 kids really had different mothers, because my hearing loss progressed a lot between them. Our third child speaks very loudly, because she had to for me to understand her. Her kids speak loudly, as well. One very frustrating event I remember is when my daughter got off the school bus crying, and I couldn't understand what the problem was.
CW: Our kids were pretty much grown when my hearing loss started, so that wasn't an issue.
DW: We both sign and our kids never picked that up, so that was good at Christmas.
DH: They could take advantage of the fact that we couldn't hear. One was sneaking out at night for awhile.
EW: I did most of the childrearing. One event he had to attend was the father-daughter banquet, and our daughter was just beaming because he took her there. We later asked her if she ever felt embarrassed at having a father who couldn't hear. She replied that the other kids thought it was cool that she knew sign language so she never felt bad about it.

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What impact did hearing loss have on intimacy? I don't mean just sex.

AH: Well, we don't whisper in bed!
BH: You don't need good ears to be intimate.
BW: We have our own tactile signals for simple things that we can use in the dark.
CW: I can't think of any issues.

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This is a question for the hearing spouses. One of the first things you learned was that you can't call to your spouse from another room, because they can't hear you. What do you do when they call you from another room?

BH: I usually go and answer her.
AW: I usually go to him. Sometimes I'll answer from where I am!
CH: I go running. But I get even because sometimes she doesn't hear me and I scare the crap out of her.

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Do you have any advice for other deaf/hearing couples?