At What Age Does A Man Fully Emotionally Mature?

The stereotype of an immature man is not a new one. The media stereotype is that men are afraid of commitment, enjoy crass jokes, and see family and children as nuisances. They also are depicted to portray some form of narcissism, and they treat their friends better than anyone else in their life. 

Although these stereotypes are not new to anyone, they definitely do not represent every man on the planet. Unfortunately, many men fall within this camp, which can be frustrating for the people around them. Is there a particular age at which men grow to become emotionally mature?

What is emotional maturity?

Emotional maturity and standard maturity are not necessarily the same. Both contain some ambiguity by nature; the word “mature” means either at the most developed stage of a process or the peak of physical growth. Colloquially, however, maturity does not typically refer to the physical realm; instead, the term “mature” usually refers to a person’s mental state. Someone mature behaves in a way that is considered appropriate and responsible. They can take care of themselves and care about others. They are both socially aware and self-aware.

Emotional maturity contains all these aspects as well. It also includes being able to function in effective, healthy ways concerning your emotions. This means expressing emotions accurately and appropriately, possessing some amount of self-control, and thinking of others despite strong emotions. Functioning in strong, healthy relationships involves being attuned to your own emotions and emotions, which is the essence of emotional maturity.

At what age do men mature?

According to a study conducted in the United Kingdom, men do not become emotionally mature until 43. This is not a scientific evaluation of maturity because that is largely dependent on social constructs. The study relied on surveys to determine what men and women considered mature, how they felt about their maturity, and whether they believed the opposite gender was mature at a certain age. 

The results of this study concluded that men are not considered mature until approximately 43 years of age. Some of the immature traits listed were laughing at gaseous emissions, showing off, relying too much on their mothers, and eating fast food in the early morning.

Some mental health professionals do not uphold the notion of age-based maturity. They assert that maturity has more to do with your background, values, and even biology than years alone. How you mature and the things you consider mature will vary based on your upbringing, neurological development, and cultural framework. Some cultures value autonomy more than emotional depth, and maturity will be marked by the ability to take care of oneself. Other cultures value emotional depth, and dependence is not seen as a pitfall but a lack of emotional intelligence.

Emotional maturity is not a simple matter of checking off boxes. Some traits can effectively demonstrate the presence of emotional maturity. These traits usually focus on a person’s ability to perceive, understand, and handle emotions, both in themselves and others. Understanding that emotions are important but should not rule you is one of the simplest ways to demonstrate emotional maturity. Standing still in the face of someone else’s riotous emotions can also indicate emotional maturity.

Research suggests that men emotionally mature years later than women. Where women reach proper maturity around age 32, men mature much later. The human brain development of the average man is slower than those of women. While this can provide health benefits, do not be surprised if a guy you are dating still has a cartoon bedspread after you go home with him from hanging out at nightclubs. At the same time, the typical age of immature males transitioning to maturity is years later than women, research suggesting that the age at which men reach peak maturity can range from 25-55.

Emotional maturity can be stilted by the presence of pain, trauma, or unfulfilled needs. Fortunately, these issues can often be worked through and resolved to develop healthier behaviors and habits to facilitate emotional maturity. Some issues can be resolved on your own through improved lifestyle habits, regularly engaging with others, and creating boundaries and routines for yourself. 

Others are a bit more complex, overwhelming, or painful and require the help of mental health professional. Struggling with maturity might be a common issue, but overcoming objections and obstacles is less common. Enlisting the help of others (whether that means family and friends or a therapist) can be the most effective way to gain maturity and improve immature behaviors and habits.

Maturity is far more than a simple checklist or a state that you achieve as an adult. Maturity involves knowing yourself, understanding yourself, and having some idea of how best to interact with other people. Emotional maturity might not be taught in a class. Still, it is a pivotal aspect of succeeding in all types of relationships, ranging from familial ties to workplace relationships. Relationships require you to know yourself and control yourself well enough to carry on daily (or yearly) interactions without constantly being set off, upset, or offended.

Emotional maturity is required to navigate most relationships effectively, and a distinct lack of emotional immaturity often means either unfulfilling relationships or unsuccessful ones. What might be a nuisance in your early twenties can become a significant roadblock as you reach your late twenties, thirties, and beyond. 

In childhood, emotional immaturity is to be expected as children grow. However, social needs and expectations increase significantly in how complex and varied they are, requiring you to develop some know-how to cultivate friendship, romantic relationships, and functional working relationships. While emotional immaturity might typically extend to the age of 43 in males, it does not have to. Being a mature man is very much so something that is shown through actions.

Signs of emotional maturity

Possessing emotional maturity is critical for maintaining a quality relationship with others. Having a short attention span during sensitive conversations could show that there is a lack of emotional maturity. Emotional immaturity exhibited in attention span would mean a need to work on their maturity failings. 

From the aforementioned study, it is revealed that some men do not mature until age 43; the natural ego of men would mean they react to issues instead of staying silent during an argument. Mature men would rather stay silent and analyze the issue before logically reacting. In other words, mature men, and mature people in general, know when to take some time to cool off and think.

Here are some of the signs of emotional maturity in men:

Composure

Mature men exhibit the sign of composure irrespective of the circumstances they face. Composure is why men can tolerate the feelings of discomfort during tough times as they make provision to sort out the challenge. When problems arise, mature men do not bulk under the weight of the problem but instead sit back and analyze issues as they map out ways to find solutions. Men sometimes fail to endure and sail the tide of challenges because of a lack of emotional maturity in the guise of composure.

Integrity

When men don’t exhibit integrity, it could mean they are emotionally immature. Being honest and staying on the side of truth no matter how inconvenient is a sign of emotional maturity.

Emotional intelligence

Sometimes amid friends and acquaintances, practical jokes are bandied around, and while sometimes they may seem insulting, they are what they are – jokes. Men involved in playing practical jokes should be ready to see things as they are and take them with a pinch of salt. 

Communication sometimes may be bridged, and misunderstanding may occur. However, even if rude words are used during banters, emotionally matured men would not take things to heart in these instances. A mature or emotionally intelligent man may be emotionally available because they know the true importance of being there for a loved one.

Humility

As the study commissioned, it shows that men don’t mature until they’re 43; while this is key, it is important to be accountable and refuse to blame others. Accepting wrongs means maturity is likely present, and the person may see a mistake as an opportunity to grow. 

Societal expectations can cause men to feel as though they can’t express their faults or feelings. Someone who has put effort into overcoming this makes a better partner regardless of how many years after women men tend to mature or the average age at which women and men tend to mature.

Compromise

Accepting that you are not the only man in the room and varying opinions also matter are considered signs of emotional maturity in men. While the study shows that women mature at age 32, a couple may be presented with developing simple meals for the home. Simple meals such as waffles could become an issue if both partners remain undecided. The man may opt for eating fast food while the woman prefers to cook simple meals in the house. While eating fast food may not necessarily be bad, the inability to reach a consensus may be signs of emotional immaturity, especially if it is not handled properly.

Consideration

It is important to state that analyzing issues before reacting is a sign of emotional maturity. According to a new study in 2016 on emotional maturity among internet users, it was inferred that while both young males and females exhibit immaturity, the female gender still showed signs of being more emotionally mature than the male. 

While men are often known to explore risky ventures such as driving too fast just for the fun of it or playing loud music or sometimes show immaturity by playing videogames for hours when there are more important tasks to attend to, women mature faster and exhibit signs of emotional maturity faster than men. Learning first to observe and analyze actions and inactions are good signs of an emotionally matured man.

Loyalty

A mature man will be loyal and will have respect for your relationship. Instead of having ten people on the side who don’t know about each other, he will express what he wants. Having multiple suitors fighting over you might sound cool to an immature person. Still, part of maturity is expressing your needs and being loyal to your partner (or partners, if non-monogamous). Many people have ended relationships due to cheating in infidelity, and those things happen at all ages, but being disloyal certainly isn’t a trait of a mature man.

Tact

He knows when not to make a joke. Some women question if men ever reach maturity, and if women believe that men tend to be immature in general, they have likely encountered several men without much tact. Even those who wouldn’t describe themselves as immature might make a tactless joke that isn’t funny. 

Studies indicate that a quarter of men think it’s okay to make a sexual joke at work, whereas less than a quarter of women feel the same way. This is an example of one of the ways that maturity is about respect.

Presence

People check their phones nearly 100 times per day, so many of us may distracted from time to time. A mature man will know when to be present. This means that a mature man will value your time. He will respect the plans and commitments you make, and he will treasure quality time spent together. This doesn’t mean that you won’t need time to yourself; that’s important for everyone! What it means is that he won’t take you or your time for granted.

Where do women fall?

The same study determined that men mature at 43 found that women typically matured at or around 32 years of age. This could account for some of the difficulty often associated with romantic relationships between men and women; if women reach emotional maturity a full eleven years before their male counterparts, cultivating a strong emotional relationship may prove difficult. 

The difference in emotional maturity could also contribute to the common conception that women are ready for children earlier than men. Parenting requires emotional maturity. Emotional maturity means being able to notice, understand, and care for your emotional state while remaining aware and considerate of the emotional states of others.

Some of this may be due to societal conditioning. Women might become emotionally mature younger because they experience more pressure and greater resources in developing this skill. Men are often culturally excluded from the necessity of developing this trait.

Barriers to emotional maturity

Ideally, people would reach emotional maturity as they reach physical maturity. Unfortunately, this is often not the case. Emotional maturity is affected by many different factors, and they are largely unpredictable and uncontrollable. Many men and women find themselves with a marked lack of emotional maturity, despite working hard to develop it. The most common reason for lack of emotional maturity is the presence of trauma.

Trauma is a complex and many-layered condition and can be caused by myriad issues. For some, trauma begins in childhood when ignored or undervalued by an emotionally absent parent. For others, trauma is sparked by teenage bullying. Emotional trauma can occur in adulthood as well when you are betrayed by someone you trusted. No two cases of trauma are the same, and emotional immaturity can take on many faces as a result.

Arguably, the best way to learn emotional maturity is to see it modeled. Children look to their parents when trying to figure out how to interact with other people. If your parents did not display consistent measures of emotional maturity, you might find it difficult to exemplify it yourself. Learning how to essentially re-parent yourself and repair some of the damage done through childhood modeling can help create emotional maturity and improve your relationships.

When does immaturity matter? 

In some ways, a difference in maturity doesn’t necessarily have to matter. That is if it doesn’t bother you personally. Certain things, like playing videogames, an interest in weight lifting, buying protein shakes, making silly jokes, driving a modified car with loud exhaust, getting into a new show with jokes about farts and burps, doing wheelies stunts, driving with loud music on – whatever it is – don’t matter all that much if maturity is present in other areas. 

That is, unless these traits and interests are unattractive to you, in which case, you don’t need to stick around. You can’t really force someone to stop playing video games or to like different types of media, but you also deserve to be with someone compatible with you, and if it’s a mature man with different hobbies, that is valid. Most of the time, emotional immaturity affects the relationship negatively. You deserve someone who’s not only in your age bracket but who’s ready for what you are in terms of life and romance.

At the end of the day, what matters is your ability to make important decisions together and your happiness in the relationship. If the difference in maturity is stark in areas where it matters or shows a person’s character (think about maturity failings like driving too fast, which is dangerous, sitting there trying to beat children at games, which he shouldn’t be doing as an adult, an inability to have proper conversations about serious topics, which is essential for a couple, and so on), that’s where it’s time to confront the situation for sure. 

Staying silent when something’s bothering you in a relationship isn’t a good idea; it can lead to internalized frustration, damaging the relationship far more than a frank conversation. If you have a partner who can’t cook simple meals at all, has no emotional maturity, and can’t talk about important topics, they might not be the one.

Mature men will want to work together to have a healthy relationship. Mature men don’t avoid important topics altogether, treat you as though things that mean a lot to you don’t matter, make fun of you or tell you that you’re overreacting when you feel upset or disrespected, and so on. A mature man will listen when you tell him that you don’t like being treated a certain way, when a joke goes too far, or when you need to chat about something serious. 

Mature men tend to have learned from their past mistakes. Men tend to have made plenty of immature actions and mistakes in the past, just as anyone else has, and learning from those actions is important. Learning from mistakes or past immaturities is often part of how men grow into mature men.

Online counseling for emotional maturity

Whether you’re partnered with a mature man or one who’s on the immature side, all couples run into issues from time to time. Online counseling can help couples with a wide variety of concerns that may occur in a romantic relationship. Whether you see a provider near you or see someone through an online counseling website like Regain, you can get the support you need. 

Regain offers both individual counseling and couples counseling. Whether you’ve ended a relationship and want to seek individual counseling or you want to see a couples therapist with your partner, the counselors at Regain can meet with you at times that are convenient from your schedule, and you can attend sessions from any location with a secure internet connection. 

Many people who have experienced childhood trauma have made successful gains in emotional maturity after seeking online therapy. In one recent study, nearly 100 participants engaged in ten sessions of online cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), with the goal of the trial being to understand the intervention’s impact on participants’ post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and related symptoms. Results yielded significant reductions in depression and anxiety, further emphasizing online counseling’s efficacy as a treatment mode for various mental health conditions and scenarios.

That said, you do not have to have a diagnosable condition to reap the benefits of online therapy. There is no right or wrong reason to seek advice from a neutral third party who can act as a sounding board.

Takeaway

Maybe you have long noticed a maturity gap between you and your current partner, or perhaps you know that you are emotionally mature and that it stands in the way of some of your goals. Regardless of your past and present, the online therapists at Regain will work with you in a nonjudgmental approach to help you become the best version of yourself. When you’re ready, reach out to a Regain therapist today.