Couples Therapist in Atlanta
I’m Cheryl Delaney, and I’m a couples therapist in Atlanta, Georgia.
Is your relationship stuck in a loop?
Every time a dreaded topic comes up, you know it’s going to lead to bad places. You have your patterns and your partner has there’s and it’s almost like you could press play on the scene and watch it play out over and over again.
Relationship work is the most challenging and painful work I do. It feels incredibly high stakes and intense emotions are never more than a word or phrase away from popping up. Even so, relationship work might be my favorite because it’s also by far the most rewarding.
What Does Perfectionism Have to do with Relationships?
Two of the most common loops couples get stuck in are the “I’m right” and “I didn’t do anything wrong” loops. Both of those depend on an either/or view of the relationship and the people involved: either you (or your partner) are perfect, or you’re (they’re) blameworthy.
In order to break out of the loops, each partner has to be willing to look only at the part they contribute to the harmful patterns. This process is not for the timid! In fact, it’s demanding and often scary. After so much time spent seeing how the other person is creating the loops, it’s painful to see what we’ve been doing to start them or keep them going ourselves.
None of us is perfect, though, and we all do things that push other people away or hurt them. A willingness to face that head-on can transform your life. Instead of walking on eggshells, you’ll feel at ease and connected.
What would you give for the relationship you dreamed of?
How Couples Therapy Can Help
You remember the reasons you got together - there was a spark there, and you want that back. Your lives are so entwined now that it’s daunting to think about a split.
You don’t have to feel lonely around the person you care most about! What would it feel like to know you could reliably talk to them about the real things on your mind and feel connected as a result? What would it feel like to be upfront about your own vulnerabilities and be open to hearing theirs without fear of rejection or conflict?
Your relationship can feel warm, relaxed, and caring. If both partners are willing to work hard between sessions and look at their own patterns, I can show you how to be close again.
What would it feel like to have a relationship filled with warmth and affection?
We have so many tools we can use to create deep, meaningful changes in your relationship. By understanding your thoughts, learning about your unconscious motivations, confronting the thing you fear the most, and uncovering hidden conflict, we’ll put your relationship on stronger footing than it’s ever had.
Relationship Work
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Motivation is probably the most important factor in the success of couples’ therapy. When I’m working on my own relationship, I feel committed to change one minute, then convinced there’s nothing I could do because I’m clearly not the cause of the problem.
It’s incredibly easy to convince myself of that, despite being a professional who does this work for a living and KNOWS it to be untrue.
Because it is partly true. I’m not the only cause of the problem. So it’s easy to spot all the evidence in my favor. At the same time, I can only focus on the parts that I do contribute.
Even if both partners come to therapy feeling equally and powerfully motivated to look at their own shortcomings, we’ll still spend a lot of time thinking about and working through the inevitable hesitation that will come up throughout the process.
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“She doesn’t love me, she’s just out for herself,” or “he doesn’t really care, and he’s overly critical.”
Even innocuous words from your partner will get your hackles up if you’re listening to them with those beliefs in mind. If you see them as harsh or lazy or closed off, they won’t be able to ask about your day without you interpreting their words with a frame of criticism or distance.
Adjusting your beliefs about your partner (and vice versa) can likewise change the temperature of everything you say to each other, even if the script would read the same on the page.
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Each of you has habits or patterns that come up when conversations get tense. Maybe one of you blows up and the other walks away and cuts off further conversation. Both contribute to the distance in your relationship and both habits developed for good reasons.
Each of you will need to take the brave leap of seeing the way your own habitual response is contributing to distance. We’ll use tools to learn what those are for each of you and then to learn new ways to respond.
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Whenever there’s more than one person in a room, disagreement is there too. If we don’t have constructive ways to acknowledge that and negotiate a shared understanding, the disagreement either erupts into conflict or goes underground leaving resentment and misunderstanding simmering quietly instead.
Anger is a powerful and important and learning to be caring and honest with it is incredibly challenging and will pay off in every other part of your life. The skills you learn for communicating your emotions with your partner will have dividends for your life at work and with other family members.
Of all the types of work I’ve done to improve my own life, understanding the value of anger and especially the value of expressing anger with warmth and care has led to the biggest transformations.
Tying It All Together
This is a demanding way to heal your relationship—it requires incredible dedication from each person and a ton of courage. It’s also the best way I know to create the kind of connection you long for in your most important relationships.
Every client I’ve ever worked with has put good relationships with the people in their lives at the top of their list of most cherished values. Working to create one with your partner might be the wisest thing you ever do.
Let’s Talk.
Click below to schedule a free, 30-minute Couples Therapy consultation.