I have a roommate that insists on keeping everything 'just so' - he's my best friend, but he's making me crazy - why?

So this is the odd couple situation that has become an icon in show business because it deals with a truth or real situation faced by so many folk.

In all probability if both of you complete a Kolbe R™ worksheet on the other, you would find no matter how much you like each other, you wish your roommate were different in this respect.

A neat person usually desires a roommate who will keep things tidy. A slobiferous person doesn't want to be nagged to clean up but rarely minds if the other person will do it for them. So, the greatest frustration tends to be on the part of the neatnik who may even get to the point of losing respect for the way the other acts.

You won't change who you are or how you need to live, but you can alter your desires, showing greater appreciation of the other person and the amount of energy it takes to develop habits that override instincts (such as replacing the empty toilet paper roll).

No matter how hard I try, I just can't get my husband to fix things around the house. Does this have something to do with instinct?

Perhaps. We've done a disservice to the men in our culture when we assume that just because they're male, they have natural talent where using their hands is concerned. Just as many females as males have instinctive bents toward tangible demonstration and talents which manifest themselves in physical or spatial ways. And, just as many males are preventive in Implementor, which means their talents lie in the realm of the abstract rather than the concrete. Chances are that your husband doesn't do the handyman stuff because his creative energies manifest themselves in other ways. Complete a Kolbe R™ worksheet to define what you desire from your husband and then have him complete the Kolbe A™ worksheet. You may be surprised by what you find!