Am I overreacting for yelling at my husband for not being able to hear him.
Hello Reddit,
I’m going to try to make this as short as possible with as much context as I can so it’s not the longest post ever made.
I (F24) have been married to My Husband (M31) for a few months now (congrats us).
We have been together for five years, lived together for 4 years.
About a year and a half ago (3.5 years into the relationship) I ruptured my left eardrum, and since then I have had some slight hearing loss. Nothing that seems too noticeable, but I definitely catch myself saying huh a lot more. Mind you this has been going on for a year and a half now and every single day I have to tell my husband “I cannot hear you.”
90% of the time when I can’t hear him I can hear that there is sound happening, but I cannot make out the words that are being said. Even when he is driving and I am in the passenger seat (my bad ear facing him). And I wouldn’t say he is a soft spoken person either.
Obviously, there’s a learning curve when somebody loses some hearing and I feel that I have given him plenty of time to adjust his volume so that I can hear him, but a year and a half later I still find myself having to tell him every day…multiple times a day that I cannot hear him.
I have tried gently, reminding him I can’t hear.
I have tried sitting down with him and having a short discussion with him on how I can’t hear him.
I have tried sitting down with him and having an extensive conversation on how I cannot hear him.
I have tried catching a small attitude with him when I cannot hear him. (example being: he’s speaking at a volume that I cannot hear - I sigh to indicate that I am frustrated and say “I cannot hear you”.
I have tried telling him that if you speak at a volume, I cannot hear. I am not going to respond to you. (And to be clear i’m talking about the instances where I can hear the sound of his voice, but I cannot hear the exact words that he is saying)
And before anyone paints him as a man who simply couldn’t give a damn he is one of the most genuinely kind people I have ever met in my entire life.
I feel absolutely loved by this man. He takes care of me when I’m sick. He has been there for me through all of my mental health struggles through my physical struggles through my family things. We have been through a lot together and we both always come out stronger and better for each other. There have been many things over the years that we have “changed” about ourselves to adapt better for our relationship (nothing crazy just normal relationship stuff ) so “change” isn’t exactly something we’ve never been through. so this honestly is coming as a shock to me that we are having an issue like this.
Now onto the part where there’s a good chance I am the asshole.
A couple of months ago we are getting ready to go out with some of our friends, and he is in the kitchen, putting some dishes away while I finish up my makeup and hair in the bed room. (Slight context, our apartment is about 1700 ft.² and it is very slender so the kitchen is at the very beginning of the apartment and the bedroom is on the opposite side of the apartment. As far as it could possibly be with about four walls between.)
As I’m in the bedroom watching TV window open continuing to get ready, I can hear a very faint voice coming from someplace not the bedroom, I do assume that it is My husband, but my thought process is if he’s actually speaking to me, he will come into the bedroom and ask since he knows I’m still getting ready. After about five minutes, he enters the bedroom and says “could you not hear me” to which I reply “no I did not the TVs on and the window is open. I didn’t hear you.” to which he said “well I was asking you to come here to help me and I’ve been waiting for five minutes.”
We are kind of going back-and-forth for a bit about how I just simply couldn’t hear him and I’m trying to gently remind him that I cannot hear him sometimes and that if he needed me, he could’ve come into the room to ensure that he was heard. And we’re not exactly arguing but it isn’t a gentle conversation. And at some point, I got completely fed up with the conversation and yelled “I have been telling you for a year and a half every single fucking day that I cannot hear you and you refuse to speak any fucking louder”
To which it becomes than a full-blown argument, he’s upset I’m upset and no one is willing to see anybody’s point of view. And at some point, I start just crying because I am absolutely exhausted and start trying to explain why I am so frustrated. I try telling him that it is extremely frustrating to me that I have not been able to hear him for a year and a half and I have been asking him to speak up so that I can hear him . And I try to ask him to put the shoe on the other foot if he was asking me to do the same thing multiple times every single day he would be just as frustrated as I am . I tried to explain Having to tell the person I’m choosing to spend the rest of my life with that I cannot hear them and that It needs to change because I cannot do that every day for the rest of my life. (Not that I’m going leave him but doing that would be absolutely exhausting)
I feel that I have given ample time for him to adjust the level of his voice so that I can hear.
I feel that I have started with a gentle reminders and slowly ramped up my aggravation and I was getting absolutely nowhere. It was not getting any better after a year and a half it really truly felt like there was absolutely zero change.
And still months later, I feel that I have exhausted every possibility and still I’m having to tell him that I cannot hear him.
So I felt screaming at him would finally open his eyes to how frustrating it is for me and maybe he would finally put some effort in to speak up.
So I just need to know am I the asshole for yelling at My Husband/ also wanting some advice on how to proceed?
Thank you for your candor!