Husband has had raging tinnitus for 35 years. Hearing aides tried 15 years ago amplified tinnitus and were given up. So now that we are in our 65+years, the hearing loss is worse and I have to repeat myself so much that I do it in public to everyone else and look cuckoo. My hearing is still okay.
Mum has refused to wear her hearing aides at all since her stroke (2018). Lip-reads only. Proundly deaf.
Dad has tinnitus both ears (industrial hearing loss). Has been told hearing aides will magnify that so not suitable for him at this stage.
Bil was born deaf in one ear, like his Mother. His Father has age related hearing loss.
Son has hearing/attention problem. Cannot distinguish sounds from backgroud noise (ie cannot hear my voice in a shopping centre - used to freak out & run away).
My DH has selective hearing!! Ha ha
If any of our family members had learnt sign language it would be MUCH easier.
How we cope;
#1 face the person, have ful eye contact
#2 ensure mouth not covered (hands, scarf etc) to enable lip reading
#3 speak shorter sentences, clearly to that person only
#4 check to see if message got through
Yes it's slow & quite frustrating. There is no quick to & fro of conversation with my Mum, ever (she lipreads only) but in a quiet room I can chat very well with my Dad. Phone calls are too/hard or impossible so we txt instead.
Bil plans for nap time after events - concentrating extra hard takes a lot of energy.
Does your DH get grumpy after noisy outings?
I know I was completely WREAKED after hosting a party with all of the above family members there.
A final though: yelling louder or repeating yourself when out with your DH is just going to send your blood pressure up!
Get his attention first, get good eye contact then try. See if that is better.
No harm in adding a few simple hand gestures either.
He may not improve so it will be up to you to become the best communicator you can be. Good luck :)
You'll also want to make sure that the hearing aids were fit by a qualified professional. There are a lot of hearing aid providers out there who do not use best practices when fitting hearing aids, and so the failure is not always in the devices. If you can, get him in to see a qualified audiologist who can assess the tinnitus and hearing loss and provide some new options to help. And stress to him that he needs to get help with his hearing for your sake and not just his own.