After you have acknowledged the other side of our character, then we should learn how to cope with it.
The development of our character has direct influence from our parents, friends, schoolmates, who we have met, and what we have experienced. A strong leader must have learned from someone great in leadership, modesty and initiation. A coward must have met someone barbaric and chaffing and force to be submissive, timid and overcautious. A passive and quiet person must have had a long term forbidden in expressing his or her own thought or opinion.
Rome wasn't built in one night. Our distinct personality has gone through so many different people and matters to build, with so much complexions in senses, so much unforgettable encounters and psychological variations influencing our judgements, modifying or refining human disputable personalities seem to be building castles in the air and become impractical.
Because of the half merits and half demerits of these disputable characters, modifying or refining may sacrifice the merits and lead to other demerits. For example, a coward becoming a brave man may lose the advantages of timidity for getting less trouble, but gain the disadvantages of bravery for getting more trouble. Therefore, our main concern should be how to obtain both characters, obtain the merits of both characters, to do the right thing at the right time, to use the right disputable characters at the right moment.
To give fast courage to a coward may require a magic wand and a wizard of oz. Modification or refinement of human personality can not be done in days; it may require decade of practice, self-adjustment and self-examination to move a small step forward. But acknowledging the merits, demerits and importance of each disputable character, may help your future self-adjustment and self-examination, and may give you further ease and confidence to obtain other missing disputable characters. To help you figure out when and which occasion should be brave, and when and which occasion should be timid.
If your love one isn't into something jeopardizing, fatal or self-destructive, like gambling, drugs abuse, excessive drinking or smoking, sex-abuse, whoring, child abuse, etc., then we should give them time to self-adjust and self-examine. Look back to yourself 10 years ago, aren't you more mature, more opened and have greater tolerance with self-adjustment and self-examination? If you are upset about his or her demerits of any disputable character, try to think of the good time and advantages with the same character to balance your heart and your scale.
You will find bad temper, self-centered, selfishness, stubbornness, jealousy, impatience, rebellion and revenge in most human characters. If those are the reasons for incompatible characters, then you can hardly find anyone to live for life. These are the characters we need to modify and refine. I have successfully co-ordinate one couple with totally different characters, with the modification or refinement of the above eight characters.
I have met a couple; the husband is an active, sporty and well-educated person. Into all kinds of sports, like reading technical, technological, financial, spiritual and philosophical news papers, magazines or books; like watching TV programs in sports, news, documentary films about nature and wild life. His friends are mainly university graduated, with a lot of masters, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bank managers, etc., talk about subjects like ideology, philosophy, psychology, religions, arts, finance, politics, etc. He has good patience, temper, self-control and modesty.
The wife is only a high school graduated, not into any sport, into a lot of recreation, high spending and shopping, like reading recreational and entertainment magazines, like watching TV programs in cooking, cartoons, comedies, travel, leisure, fashion, entertainment, etc. Her friends are mainly high school graduates, with a lot of sales girls, office ladies, and house wives, talk about gossips, recreational, fashion and entertaining news. She has little patience and bad temper, has less self-control, highly suspicious mind, and boasting.
Their marriage had a lot of problems at the beginning, having such a distinct difference in ideology, interest and personality, they could hardly find any common topic, interest or habit to share or discuss. Everything were poles apart, the husband and his friends discriminated the wife, the wife was in deep stress, feeling inferiority, and losing confidence about their marriage and future.
I told them the correct way of living together and maintaining happy marriage. The husband needed to lower his standards, learned to accept her different habits, and started to watch TV together. The wife needed to refine her level, to control her temper, patience and spending, and started reading about books or magazines in finance, environment protection and philosophy. They were both learning my methods in dealing with dispute, and started looking at things from other's angles and point of views, to start off with a clean slate.
Now they are living happily together, with less argument, more tolerance, understanding and forgiving, to learn and accustom each other's life style, to strike a happy medium in searching for the most suitable life style for both of them.
If we are renovating the house, and the husband and wife have opinions and preferences poles apart, and couldn't find any common ground and agreement. The best way to strike a happy medium is to give both sides equal choices to choose what they like. For example, if the husband chooses the color of the cabinet, then let the wife chooses the style. If the husband decides to make every decision of the whole cabinet, then let the wife chooses her own choice of dinning table and matching chairs. If the husband wants to design the whole kitchen, then the wife can design the whole dinning room. Only equal and mutual right will have equal and mutual respect and love.
A lot of people considers different or opposite opinions is caused by incompatible characters. A lot of time, both sides will have their own points to stand their grounds. For example, some people argue donators shouldn't use their real names, and those celebrities announce publicly about their donation are just fishing for fame and compliments. I totally agree with their accusation, but since showing off is part of our human behavior, accusing and discouraging their conduct may hurt their dignity, weaken their enthusiasm, and reduce their amount of donation, and eventually hurting the poor, the sickness, the misfortune and the charities. Every cloud has a silver lining, and the merits seem to be bigger than the demerits.
Another example, flattery is bad; flattering the boss is sickening behavior among a lot of people. I totally agreed with this, but if you are good to everyone, and treat everyone equally, then you are no longer flattering. I have seen a lot of department heads helping their staff buy lunch or getting coupons, but refusing all the extra or after work duties from their bosses or directors. They think having lunch with their bosses is similar to taking a test or attending court. They think their boss is as sober as a judge is, and any incorrect conversation will make them lose further promotion chances or even cost their jobs. They think getting along with their bosses is the dirty job of the crawlers, and should be discouraged. Probably their bosses are Martians, and should be isolated. They don't have any human emotions or any need of care. We will blame them for promoting the flatterers and lifting their salaries, but not blaming ourselves for not being friendly or not helping the bosses in doing all the extra work. If someone tells you they hate flattery, they may be saying this on purpose, you may find out who are the true flatterers when they get promoted one day.
These are two good examples of the "Tai Chi" theory; every thing or matter is equal in merits and demerits. There is no certainty in true or false. A little bit of amending or angles changing may have some totally new discoveries.
Now we should understand one thing, there's no account for taste, but there should be some tastes we can try, amend, share or combine. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, some preferences aren't really that bad to learn and accept, we are just blocking by our pride, prejudice, righteousness and past criticism. The characters hurting our relationship so much are bad temper, self-center, selfishness, stubbornness, jealousy, impatience, rebellion and revenge. Fixing these demerits can solve most of the marriage problems.
If you have problems in section 1, you may require special local organization to help you. The person also needs to have a lot of family support, self-control, determination and mentality to resist the future temptation.