Dear Riris:

“I don’t think that my mother realizes that she criticizes me”, but she does. Her not realizing it doesn’t change the fact that she has been criticizing you for many years.

“She probably denies when I would confront her”, so you don’t fully believe that she indeed criticizes you, not unless she agrees with you that she does.

Your father says that he doesn’t push you but he does.

This is the problem for us children and adult children when it comes to understanding ourselves and our parents: we don’t believe that we see reality as it is unless the parents tell us we see correctly.

It is my understanding at this point that your anger has been about not being valued by your own mother, for one (“It’s like I should be someone else to reach to her standards”). She talks about random things, groceries, her attention has been not with you but with random things.

You are angry at her but not aware that you are, so your anger expresses otherwise, elsewhere, as in cheating on your husband.

anita