My boyfriend gets frustrated when I cannot hear him or process what he is saying even though I have diagnosed hearing loss with lower pitches.
TLDR
I am looking for some feedback.
My boyfriend (M60) of 15 months gets very frustrated when he has to repeat himself to me (F55), which is quite often, and ends up practically yelling at me in a curt or mean voice. I have diagnosed hearing loss at the lower pitches and he has a very deep voice. Additionally, I have a hard time processing things say, which may or may not be from the hearing loss or something else. I end up saying "what", or "excuse me", or "I'm sorry, I didn't catch that" quite often. If I am next to him or looking at him, I can usually hear him fine, but if I am doing something else and he says something, I generally do not hear or understand him. He is also a low talker and had a stroke last year which slightly effected his speech, so with the deep voice and lower volume, it is extremely hard. He gets frustrated with me and ends up slowing his speech down, speaking very loud and sometimes feels mean. He gets irritated with me and sometimes states he gets tired of repeating himself. I have told him that I do have hearing loss at the lower pitched and also sometimes have a hard time processing speech if I am doing or concentrating on something else. Sometimes he has apologized and said he wasn't trying to be mean, but it is frustrating for him to have to repeat himself so much. I have considered not having him repeat himself and try to guess from context what he is saying, but I don't think it would work because he is very sharp and astute to my body language and would definitely know if I was "faking" it. I feel like he has no empathy in this situation and doesn't seem to make any effort to initially speak up to a level I can hear, slow down so I can process, or at least make sure I can. I certainly do not like being yelled at for something that is out of my control!! My late husband (M53) who passed away almost three years ago (married 30 years) also had a deep voice and was a low talker. He too would get super irritated with me about repeating things, until I found out that I do have hearing loss. Then he was more understanding and made adjustments in his volume of speaking.