Based on my experience, a hot-tempered person is more likely to escalate his tantrums into rages/emo abuse rather than to tone down.
So, 1st on your protocol list is: Stop Hoping. Hoping will leave you more victimized, &/or dead.
LEARN how to Best Cope, instead.
I am married to a man who can whip up a tornado in the blink of an eye.
Small or big issue, it is all the same: worthy of rage.
Yes, Loving is hard, unfortunately.
So is it hopeless? What is "Hopeless" to a person who loves, as a sis here pointed out?
What can you do? You Cope.
Study him like a lab specimen.
Study what triggers the rages/"showtimes".
You must learn to diffuse/avoid these.
Basically, to head off a rage: I pander, agree, give in, provide, play along.
Next level, if required: I prevaricate, manipulate, shift the topic, do doublespeak (as in: it comes as "I agree, you are right, bleh bleh bleh" Then he settles down and thinks back to rationality.); do deadma, go deaf while he whines/rages/complains; &/or re-direct the aggression (which makes me cringe after, but heck, my neck or somebody else's at the moment of great tension?).
Next, next level of coping: I disappear, for an hour, hours, a day, couple of days (when I feel sooo at peace. No feeling of being in the company of a tiger that is about to bite your neck off at any moment. ) I go back when his rationality kicks back in. Getting all worked up in a rage is tiring, after all.
BUT, when all else fails, or am cornered ...
I put on a hard face with even harder eyes.
See, once after spending the whole afternoon with his kabitch, he came home in anger, walked up to me working at my laptop, and just hit the side of my head. I got up, placed a pointer finger near his face and declared: You do that again, I will kill you. Murder or hatred surely must have been pouring out of my eyes, coz he backed off.
IMO, rages/a bad temper if allowed to grow just ends in 1 place: Violence.
Hindi ko paabutin sa ganyan.
BUT, when all else fails, unahan na lang. I will not go out of this world without a fight.
Eh Judge, nandilim paningin ko. Sorry.