If Someone's Patience Got Shorter With Age, These 11 Things Changed Their Hearts
They're tired of tolerating misbehavior.
MAYA LAB | Shutterstock While patience itself may be rooted in emotional intelligence skills or even personality traits, the truth is that it's often ingrained in life experiences, aging, and shifting values more than we realize. According to a study from the Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, patience does tend to decrease as people get older, but largely only for those living in poverty. Alongside wealth, if someone's patience got shorter with age, these specific things changed their hearts.
It's not just about having the regulation skills to deal with emotions, leverage patience, and stay collected in the face of misbehavior — it's about life experiences that shift the way we think, connect, and behave. If someone's spent the last decade defending themselves and tolerating misbehavior, of course they're going to be less interested in entertaining it as adults.
Here are the 11 reasons people get less patient as they get older:
1. Living in poverty
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According to a study from the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, many people who are dealing with constant financial worries or stress experience higher levels of psychological distress. Whether that prompts loneliness, isolation, anger, or mental health concerns is often dependent on the person.
But if someone's patience got shorter with age, this could be part of the reason why. They're too overwhelmed and strained with their money situation to give people second chances and tolerate misbehavior that adds more chaos to their daily lives.
2. Feeling pressured to justify their life choices
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Often prompted by a dysfunctional or toxic family dynamic, people who feel pressured to over-explain and justify their life choices to others may experience emotional overwhelm that leads to impatience. Especially if they've found healthy coping mechanisms that boost their self-esteem, later in life they're more likely to notice these ploys for validation and shut them down immediately.
Feeling like they had to justify everything to feel accepted can change a person's heart, urging them away from certain people and back to themselves for a sense of security.
3. Being manipulated in a toxic relationship
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If someone has spent a great portion of their life being taken advantage of or offering their kindness to people who clearly don't deserve it, chances are any increase in self-esteem and self-image brings impatience. They're too secure now to give attention, time, and energy to people who only hurt them in return.
According to a study from Brain Sciences, people who have dealt with emotional exhaustion in the face of manipulation could be coping with burnout. Not only does this heighten loneliness and mental health concerns, but it also affects a person's patience for things like misbehavior, minor inconveniences, and stress.
4. Managing grief
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The emotional exhaustion that often comes from the stages of grief that go unnoticed can often lead to a lack of patience. People on their grief journey may be impatient and angry that everyone else seems to move on, while they're stuck in this place of sadness.
So, if someone is less tolerant of misbehavior and toxicity, chances are their grief has changed their heart.
5. Tolerating a one-sided relationship
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If a relationship feels more like an obligation than a fulfilling connection, chances are it's one-sided. Even if it's subtle, partners who are consistently putting in a ton of effort but getting none in return will eventually lose their patience.
Whether it's prompted by burnout or emotional exhaustion, we can't take on the needs of another person completely on top of our own forever. So, if someone's patience got shorter with age, these things probably changed their hearts.
6. Being misunderstood on purpose
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According to a study from Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, people who feel understood by the people around them don't just bolster interpersonal closeness — they also experience a boost in personal self-esteem. The people we continue to let into our lives must understand and value us.
Of course, having this kind of basic understanding isn't inevitable for all relationships; in fact, some people will intentionally misunderstand you to weaponize their own power. That's why impatience with these people is actually a strength, and something a person learned when they've recognized how manipulative those chronic intentional misunderstandings are.
They're no longer justifying their personal identity or over-explaining themselves to seek approval, but walking away, setting boundaries, and leaning into the people who do "get" them.
7. Fighting for their own personal peace
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If someone's worked hard to heal from trauma, set strong boundaries, and learn to protect their personal peace, chances are their patience with tolerating misbehavior is low. They're no longer willing to people-please at their own expense or tolerate disrespect from people who don't deserve access to them — they're intentional about what and who they keep around.
They've had to over-explain themselves and justify their own boundaries before, and they're no longer willing to let other people dictate how they live their lives or show up for themselves. According to a study from Personality and Individual Differences, it's not just their self-esteem that grows because of this self-security, but also their relationships with others.
8. Waiting for someone to change
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Even if you beg and plead with someone to change their ways, whether it's in a relationship or family dynamic, they will not change unless they want to. They need to have some kind of internal motivation to make the change; otherwise, their progress will always be hindered by who's around or what everyone else thinks.
So, whether it's a substance problem in your family, a toxic ex-boyfriend, or a friend that you're asking to be respectful, someone who's tired of begging people to change is probably less patient with age. They know what it's like to fall into the delusion that they can "fix someone," but they're not doing it anymore.
9. Watching bad people succeed
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As psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman suggests, narcissistic people are often popular, well-liked, and successful because they have the charisma, lack of morals, and selfishness to succeed in our inherently flawed institutions. It's a fact of life that not every good person will get what they deserve, and instead, bad people, manipulators, and narcissistic people will take their place.
If someone's patience got shorter with age, chances are learning this hard truth changed their hearts. They're not interested in sabotaging their well-being for things they think they "deserve," but they're also tired of trying to justify success with some kind of moral goodness.
10. Raising kids
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According to a study from Frontiers in Psychology, parents are often more impatient than their non-parent counterparts. Not only is tolerating constant misbehavior from kids a struggle, especially without strong coping skills and regulation strategies, but dealing with the same things over and over is a form of emotional chaos that only parents understand.
If someone's patience got shorter with age, these experiences and things changed their hearts. They may have the perspective on good parenting styles and better regulation skills, but now, their patience has run dry.
11. Living in our consumerist world
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Especially for people who are already emotionally exhausted, stressed, or overworked, living in our consumerist society founded on instant gratification can quickly lower someone's patience, at least according to psychiatrist Neel Burton. He believes that patience is a "lost virtue" in our society, because so many people would prefer instant comfort and dopamine to the relief and power of waiting.
So, if someone's patience got shorter with age, chances are they've simply been radicalized by our convenience culture, and don't have the regulation skills or emotional stability to challenge it.
Zayda Slabbekoorn is a senior editorial strategist with a bachelor's degree in social relations & policy and gender studies who focuses on psychology, relationships, self-help, and human interest stories.
