Excessive pressure on a partner or child to perform, achieve, or succeed can be sincerely framed by the person applying it as devotion — a genuine desire to see someone reach their potential — which makes the pressure much harder to challenge than if it were framed as simple control. The person on the receiving end of the concern (often a spouse watching the dynamic from outside) can be talked out of objecting precisely because the stated motivation sounds reasonable, even loving.
George Simon's clinical framing is useful here: the sincerity of the underlying motivation doesn't actually settle whether the behavior is harmful. Those are two separate questions, and conflating them is exactly what lets excessive pressure continue unchallenged for years under the cover of good intentions.