KosAbility is a community diary series posted at 5 PM ET every Sunday and Wednesday by volunteer diarists. This is a gathering place for people who are living with disabilities, who love someone with a disability, or who want to know more about the issues surrounding this topic. There are two parts to each diary. First, a volunteer diarist will offer their specific knowledge and insight about a topic they know intimately. Then, readers are invited to comment on what they've read and or ask general questions about disabilities, share something they've learned, tell bad jokes, post photos, or rage about the unfairness of their situation. Our only rule is to be kind; trolls will be spayed or neutered.
Today's diarist is slinkerwink.
My husband and I just celebrated our first year of marriage last night. We've had a very happy year so far, but we have certainly faced a few difficulties related to my disability, which I'll discuss here below.
The issue of this diary is about how one deals with one's disability in the context of marriage or a long-term relationship. Deafness is one such disability that impacts communication within a marriage. I can't tell you how many times we've needlessly fought over words that were misheard and misunderstood.
We both have learned how to communicate more effectively, to have more patience, to remember that I cannot hear everything that is said, and that I have difficulty recalling words if they are spoken too fast or with the presumption I've understood them.
Here's an example of how this plays out:
Husband: Hey, can you go over to the lease office and check on when our lease is up? (said too fast in a muffled tone)
Me: Sure (faking understanding, nodding with the assumption he's talking about something else wholly unrelated to the request)
The day passes along, and I come home from work, only to be faced with the request again:
Husband: Did you ever go to the lease office?
Me: You asked me to go to the lease office? Why? What for?
Husband: To check when the lease was up? Noelle! I asked you to do this earlier today, and you nodded yes!
You see, as a deaf person, I've learned how to fake understanding just to fit within the group dynamic in a loud environment as not to look like as I'm left out and puzzled as to what the conversation is about. This is very well known within the deaf community as a way to cope with hearing people. Most of the time, this coping mechanism works.
However, in personal relationships, such as with your hearing spouse, this coping mechanism doesn't work. I had to remember not to utilize this mechanism as it'd become a habit for me, and my husband had to learn to repeat himself and to ask me if I'd understood him as to avoid any misunderstandings down the road. It also become clear to my husband when I misunderstood something as he learned how to read my face.
And yes, he has had to learn patience in communication with me. All too often, hearing people give up on engaging you in conversation if you ask them to repeat themselves in a loud environment or if you can't hear them very well. This contributes to social isolation, which isn't very nice to feel when you're the lone deaf person in a group of hearing people.
My husband also has to help translate for me when we're in a group of people, and the conversation is too fast for me to keep up with. Sometimes he forgets to let me know what's going on, and it frustrates me. No one likes feeling isolated that way in not knowing what the conversation is about. This is something my husband is still working on and I have faith that he'll remember every time we're with a large group of people such as his family and my family. He's not perfect on this point, as he hasn't had a lifetime of helping me adjust to social environments as my mother did.
Communication is a very essential part of our marriage. Even with our missteps on communication at times, we feel that we are very good at communicating because we constantly check in on each other about what our plans, goals, and needs are. We talk about the past, the present, and the future. He is the first one that I go to whenever I have concerns about something, and we talk it out. My husband being an excellent communicator is a part of the many reasons why I married him, and in the context of my disability, it's what I need.
And on this anniversary of our first year of marriage, I am very glad to be married to my husband.
With that said, here are my questions for kossacks:
How do you communicate with your spouse within the context of your disability?
Has your disability prevented communication with your spouse, and how have you adjusted to communication with your spouse?