When you can't stand something about your partner it's more than what they do, it's something about them. Yes, it's their actions that drive you crazy, but their actions that are driven by their core personality traits are the challenge. If someone is doing something that's upsetting or emotionally painful it's reasonable that you ask them to stop or modify their behavior. And when they do the problem is solved or at least reduced.
That's not the kind of problem were looking at here. Here the problem isn't some easily modified behavior like picking up his socks and putting them in the clothes hamper. It actually has something more to do with behaviors arising out of a deep-seated personality quality or trait. And the more you try to change it the more he will resist you in that change. It's human nature; you have patterns of behavior that are set and have become routine and it will be darn near impossible to alter those patterns without being internally motivated as opposed to being externally motivated (i.e. you) to change them.
In fact, the more you try dragging him away from his routines (the behavior that's upsetting you) he's going to push back, and by digging in his heals, he's actually getting more stuck in those patterns.
Now for a little humor break:
Understanding creates, tolerance, patience, and acceptance. Learning how your partner adapted to his parents parenting and his childhood environment, who his parents were as individuals and their oun life story, and what his style of communication is helps you to understand how he's gotten to be who he is. You begin to accept he came to his penny-pinching ways or total disinterest in schedules honestly. That his silence isn't a refection of you but a true reflection of him. This doesn't meant it won't hurt anymore. No, it's still upsetting and hurtful, it just has a reason behind it now which might allow you to find some level of acceptance or at least tolerance to it.
Empathy. Achieving a level of empathy for your partner may allow you to tell him how how his actions effect you in hurtful ways without blame or accusations. This may allow him to hear, maybe for the first time, how he is effecting you without being so defensive. In time, if you both practice this empathic process, you may see your partner's experience and own suffering ans not so much as the cause of your suffering, but just a part of your couplehood together. Something that must be shared and endured to together rather than a deficit of your partner's that must be corrected.
This can be hard or it may happen simply. Couples caught in the trap of polarization often need help to find ways to become empathic to their partner's suffering and to find ways of softly sharing their pain without getting their partner defensive. Couples therapy may be the quickest way forward if the pain seems to great.
Check out Reconcilable Differences for a whole lot more.