Many of our natural behaviors can end up annoying our partners when performed in the wrong time and place. Learning when and where to adjust our behavior can improve our relationships.

As an Idealist, you prefer to be in harmony with your partner and tend to avoid conflicts. You are a proponent of change that promotes growth and improvement in yourself and others.

If your partner is a Guardian, they like events and people to be predictable and planned. You are likely to annoy them if you:

• Push them to "grow" too rapidly or in a manner that doesn't make sense to them
• Criticize them for being stuck in a rut with their routines
• Discount their stories of lessons learned from past mistakes
• Constantly seek improvement through inspiration and disregard efforts that need perspiration

If your partner is an Artisan, you may mistake their need for excitement for your need for inspiration. While you enjoy their playfulness, you may wish they planned more for the future. You are likely to annoy them if you:

• Try to take control of their life to help them to improve and grow
• Want to spend too much time dreaming about the future instead of living in the now
• Smother them with togetherness so they feel trapped
• Become stuck in an emotional merry-go-round and are unable to let go

If your partner is a Rational, you'll share the love of envisioning the future, but you'll be more interested in the world of emotions and they will be more interested in the world of ideas. You are likely to annoy them if you:

• Become too emotional and lose objectivity
• Don't have patience while they explain their complex ideas
• Demand a higher frequency of romantic behaviors than they are able to give
• Call them incompetent when they are learning a new skill

If your partner is also an Idealist, you can still easily annoy each other. You are likely to have different values and visions of the future. In your desire to be "soul mates", you may not leave the other enough room to grow and change in their own way. You may have difficulty facing up to issues because of your need to avoid conflict.

Josh is an Idealist whose partner is a Guardian. He appreciates that she keeps routine chores done, but gets frustrated when she won't just drop everything and respond to his romantic overtures. She tells him that she really can't relax until she has her work done. He thinks if she loved him enough, she would respond quickly. When Josh learned how Guardians operate, he learned that these attitudes were normal for Guardians. The two of them talked about their differences. They agreed that Fridays and Sundays, she would be more flexible and the rest of the week Josh would honor her desire for "chores first". He has also learned that giving her time to make his ideas part of her schedule makes her more relaxed and focused on him. Their relationship is better than ever.

Allie is an Idealist whose partner is an Artisan. Jeremy likes to spend some of his time at the stock car races with his buddies and plays poker with them one night a week. Allie felt left out, so she learned more about stock car races and goes along some times. When her husband has his poker night, she does girl's night out. She's developing some close friendships there. Allie also convinced her husband that they needed to reserve some special time for just the two of them. Jeremy is thrilled that she's taking an interest in his hobbies and treats her like a queen on their special nights. Her friends tell her she's lucky to have a man who so clearly adores her.

Daniel is an Idealist whose partner is a Rational. He admires Nicole for her intelligence and enjoys their sharing of ideas and dreams for the future. He becomes a bit frustrated when she gets too long-winded. When they were first dating, it didn't seem too difficult to get her in a romantic mood, but now she is much less cuddly. They realized that when they were dating, she was focused more on romance and now that she had found a partner, she tends to focus on other things. Daniel explained that he still needed some romantic time for him to feel a strong connection. They invented some cue words that told them when Nicole was too preoccupied to be able to respond and when Daniel was hungry for the connection. They are more satisfied now that they are sending these signals to each other.

Heather is an Idealist whose partner is an Idealist. Early in their relationship they shared their dreams with each other and tried to fit together in all things. As time went along, conflicts began to develop. At first they didn't know what to do. A friend told them that she thought they were trying too hard to live in each other's skins. One evening they each took a pad of paper and wrote what they needed from each other, how they appreciated the other, and where they needed to have room to grow separately. After comparing notes, they made some adjustments in their expectations and now the partnership is better than ever.

Understanding how your partner operates and making some adjustments in your own style can make life run more smoothly for both partners and leave them with a more positive attitude toward one another.