Can people genuinely grow out of having a bad temper?

[Sicha99]

If someone told you that they used to have a really bad temper when younger but that they grew out of it, would you think that this is plausible?
Is this something common enough that people grow out of or is it a character trait that generally stays?
Im not sure if this is something that can be answered definitely but I thought I’d ask to get thoughts. Thank you

I did not have a bad temper as a child, but as I got older I did. More, that I had a few explosions. This was years of being a people pleasing highly sensitive person who grew up in a dysfunctional and narcissistic family system. So, eventually, that rage came out. When I had a child, it got worse; too much stress, being triggered by parenting and ND child ( not blaming them, it was me being unable to regulate well under severe stress). I did and do not go around taking this out on people, I explode alone usually at home. I don't ever take things out on people.

Yes you can absolutely work on it. The options are therapy, medication, meditation ( definitely), the personality type is also very relevant, hormones, neuro divergence? This is all relevant.

So, the question is, what's the background to this whole situation with this person. I'm guessing it's a man you've met recently.

What is bad temper but lack of emotional regulation?
I think most people can mature to the point where they don't have to express or indulge every emotion in a negative angry way.

As a child, I had tempers so explosive and violent that I did damage - once threw a bowl full of oranges, one by one, at my grandmother and wrecked the paint on one wall of the sitting room. I pitched a boy over the parapet of a bridge into a canal because he tried to grope me. When I was 13, I deliberately broke the arm of the neighbour’s son because he hit my little brother with a cricket bat. I scared myself so much with that episode that I decided quite consciously that I would not ever lose my temper again. More than 50 years on, I have never since lost my temper. I show my displeasure with carefully chosen words, quietly and without anger. My kids got used to my saying ‘I’ll deal with this when I have stopped being angry’. It took a lot of self-control to manage rage, but over time, it became easier, then my normal.

I think you can learn to control it and also develop a better sense of priority as you age, learn what battles are worth getting angry over and what should be let go.

I would say I was more fiery and argumentative when I was younger. I have mellowed with age. I rarely get in a bad mood now and have learned to control my anger and emotions. It can definitely happen.

Well emotional regulation is part of executive functioning, which doesn't finish maturing until about 25 or so, so it is theoretically possible.

Anecdotally it doesn't seem uncommon for teenage boys to go through an aggressive stage which I suspect is a combination of underdeveloped executive functioning and high testosterone during puberty, and go on to live completely normal lives where they don't punch any people or walls.

OTOH if this is someone who could be a danger to you or DC, then be extremely cautious. MNers always used to say "When people tell you who they are, believe them" and I think that's very true.

Someone told me this once, said they used to get very angry, but not anymore. I couldn’t believe it as they were so ‘nice’. Then eventually that anger came out, and there were times that I thought he would kill me. He was mean to animals too but on the face of it, he looked like a teddy bear. Can’t hide how you really feel forever.

What @BertieBotts said.

Are you asking about someone who was an angry / explosive child or even teen, or someone who couldn't regulate their emptions at 32 ?

I think we can reflect on our triggers and address the underlying issues behind then. Develop more productive coping strategies etc. Of course it makes sense that we develop and improve ourselves. I would be more concerned if someone was incapable of reflection and personal growth.

Unless we are talking about someone with a serious history of assault or significant property damage it does come across as you looking for problems. They don’t have a time machine to fix the past but they can do better going forward.

My husband came from a noisy dysfunctional and often violent family and apparently had an appalling temper. He is the most laid back person now because he doesn't have to fight to be heard.
Not my doing...he moved out of home at 16

I had an explosive temper. The last time I erupted was March 2009. I work hard constantly to keep it under wraps as I don't like that about myself.

I try working things out by talking, physical work out to get the explosive energy out, walking away to take a breather before things explode, digging my nails into myself to physically ground myself and trying things to stop the explosion. Am I perfect? No way but I try my best.

My mother was a real hothead growing up, my father was the most chilled out laid back person I ever met. My brother takes after him. My brother used to have to physically sit on top of me growing up to stop me getting physically hurt when I would explode

@Sicha99 I wasn’t a very pleasant teenager, angry outbursts regularly indoors. I felt guilty about it for years and spent my early adulthood making up for it, proving I was no longer like that. It took many years for my DM and DSis to believe I’d changed. But I had. Once I left the family home at 18, I became my own person and wasn’t angry anymore.

I look back and I think those teenager outbursts were simply because I wasn’t happy with my family life and/or school life and I didn’t know how to regulate my emotions.

I could have just grown out of it, or it was that I just left the environment I wasn’t happy in. It never returned anyway. I’m happily married w two kids and very much chilled.

I can only speak for myself but yes.

I grew up in a household full of anger, bitterness and poverty. It was a miserable loveless place, no humour, no privacy, . My dm did not believe in food allergies and ignored complaints about food.
As an adult, I have a calm comfortable home, shared with my ds with whom I have a great relationship. It is warm, cheerful and affectionate. I don't eat things that give me pounding headaches.
Life is a pleasure compared to how it was. I'm absolutely sure I am much better tempered than before I escaped. 😊 It is easy to be good tempered because I am happy.

I also think there is a difference between someone saying they "grew out of" something, unless they're talking about something that happened when they were a literal child/teenager, and having worked hard on yourself and addressed issues which were causing antisocial behaviour, such as having a lot of therapy, addressing an addiction, leaving a volatile relationship or situation, learning skills such as meditation, getting MH issues appropriately medicated, whatever it is.

I am a lot calmer and less reactive as a parent than I was when my eldest was little, and part of that is because I have ADHD which is now diagnosed and treated. When I was younger that wasn't the case. But I wouldn't say I grew out of it, I learnt how to manage it properly. Those are different things. IME, claiming to have grown out of something is sometimes a bit of a warning sign, because it suggests that the person hasn't actually addressed why they behaved that way in the past nor did anything consciously to change it, it just happened passively. If you don't know why something happened, then it could easily happen again given the wrong circumstances.

The other reason to be cautious is that it could be an easy way to explain away stories you might hear about this person from others. If they are worried that people might tell you about times when they were violent or aggressive then they can easily say "That was in the past, I'm not like that any more" but it might not necessarily be true. If it was genuinely a blip and they have reformed, then people who know them would probably know that rather than be wanting to warn people away. So I think it also is worth bearing this possibility in mind. It's a bit like "Oh we slept together but it was years ago" to try to hide/excuse a current affair and deflect any rumours about it.

I used to be less able to regulate my emotions and resorted to anger quite easily when I was younger.

I've become more patient and less likely to get angry about other people. I try and just rise above it. Difficult though sometimes!

What age was he when he had this bad temper? Have there been any worrying behaviours that you've witnessed? I'd be wary.

Thank you all. I haven’t seen any worrying behaviour from him and he seems like one of the calmest people I know, so I wouldn’t have known at all if he hadn’t mentioned it and some details. From what I know that behaviour is well in the past (like 15 years or longer) but I was taken a bit aback.

Yes, you can.

In my case a bad temper was getting angry - not actions like slamming doors or things, just shouting, saying the wrong thing sometimes and being a bit silent.

Why? All number of reasons, partly the person I am but also because of the situation. When I was in a job I loved I was a much nicer/better person. In a rubbish job not so. The relationship was toxic and that did not help. Years later in a new relationship, none of the things that used to make me angry do now. And if I do get angry its milder and short lasting.

Yes, you can. Or rather, you can learn to recognise it and deal with it before it surfaces.

My bad temper still exists, I just never get to the point any more where it will surface. Mine came from the fact that I was incapable of expressing bad emotions properly. I'd bottle them up, push them down, until I couldn't any more and I'd explode.

It was my early 20s when I figured out how to deal with it. I still can't express those emotions in the heat of the moment, but I can remove myself from the situation, do something active to calm myself down, and then go back and explain why I'm upset calmly and work to resolve it.