How many times have you heard the statement "I love my wife but…"? Why is there always the "but"? Wouldn't it be nice to be able to teach our wives how to behave properly, that is our way? Now ladies before you say it, I just as easily could have used a husband in my example and it would be received the same way by you as it is by your husband. The reality is that every one of us would like to change some aspect of our spouse and their behavior. If I could give you a process by which your spouse could be taught to change, whether they wanted to or not, I could sell the training for any price I could ask.
Here comes that "but" again, But God created us with free will, and part of what attracts us to our spouse is how they at least in part choose to practice that ability to make choices. If you or I took that free will away from our spouse, then what attracts us to them would over time disappear and we would lose that desire to be with them.
So how can I change them? The truth is you can't or at least shouldn't want to. Instead we need to address and adjust how we respond to their actions.
While I can't change them, I can change my reaction to them which may cause a change in how they react to me. In many cases we know that something we do hurts our spouses or at least annoys them, because the response we get from them is negative sometimes extremely negative. But because of the reaction from our spouse we refuse to accept that we need to change. Our attitude is that it's their problem they need to accept us the way we are. Why am I always the one who has to change? We can have this attitude even if we have never change a bit for our spouse, because we don't see a willingness to give from the other side. And don't get me wrong both sides can be right in these cases, but right in marriage does not always make for a win for either side. We need to begin to understand where a spouse is coming from so we can learn to work with them to reach a solution that each of us can accept.
On the other hand if I choose to change the way I respond to my spouse and try to understand why they don't want to change then maybe we can begin a dialog to resolve the issue. By being willing to listen to their reasoning and honestly considering why they do it, then we are opening up to our spouse and trying to reach out to them on their ground, which makes them feel more comfortable in opening up to hear your feelings as well. Sometimes by just ignoring the action a few times it may cause our spouse to consider changing the habit. If they are not getting the response they are use to or desire from you, it may just take the fun out of doing it and it may just stop after they have tested you a few times.
The real truth is that you can change the way your spouse behaves by changing the way you react to their actions. This is the only way that you can really change them in any significant way. Try to understand why they are doing the problem behavior and then modify your reaction in a manner that will remove or minimize their reason for doing it.