Slate Plus members get more Care and Feeding every week. Have a question about kids, parenting, or family life? Submit it here!

Dear Care and Feeding,

I need advice on setting some boundaries with my parents. I’ve been seeing this guy, “Steve” for the past few months. Steve has pretty severe PTSD due to some childhood trauma. He’s mostly got it under control, but he’s very antsy when it comes time to sleep, and needs a pretty strict nighttime ritual to be able to drift off: an inspection of the house/apartment before he turns in, a locked bedroom door, and no sudden noises or lights turning on after he goes to sleep.

When we’re at home, it’s not an issue. But we went to visit my parents for a week a little while ago. I made sure to tell my parents about his issues, and they promised me they’d manage to keep things fine for him, that we’d stay in my sister’s room, and they’d make sure to keep quiet after bedtime. Well, when we went there, my sister, “Summer,” turned up on the same day, and things really went sideways from there.

My parents weren’t about to throw her out of her room, so we stayed in the guest room, which doesn’t have a door that locks. And Summer was loud, playing her music until the wee hours of the morning. Steve stuck it out for two days, barely sleeping on either of them, and then announced that he would stay in a hotel room for the rest of the trip. I joined him there, and we would drive back and forth from the hotel to my parents’ place for whatever we were doing that day.

My parents are not sympathetic. My mom thinks I shouldn’t be with someone that “sensitive,” and my dad is accusing him of faking the PTSD since he was never in the military. I am beyond furious with them, not only for going back on their promise, but the casual disregard and the almost instantly turning on him.

I Left My 2-Year-Old Alone With My Husband for 15 Minutes. The Aftermath Might Haunt My Marriage Forever. Help! My Mother Has Some Strange Ideas About Underwear That Are Causing a Major Mess in My House. This Has to Stop. This Content is Available for Slate Plus members only When My Son Came Back From Easter at His Dad’s, He Was Counting a Stack of Money. I’m Stunned by How My Ex Let Him Earn It. Help! I Found the Handkerchief My Mother-in-Law Was Using for a Really Offensive Test.

But this is a new relationship. And while I do like Steve, I’m not sure this is going to be something that lasts, you know? My parents have always been very good to me. Cutting them off feels like an over-escalation, but I don’t know how else to get through to them that they went way out of line on this one. What do I say? What do I do?

—Miserable

Dear Miserable,

You definitely don’t need to cut your parents off over a new relationship, but you should talk to them honestly about how their actions made you feel. Let them know that Steve’s challenges do not take away from the (ostensibly) great guy that he is, nor do they impact how he treats you. Explain that you were (I’m assuming) embarrassed and disappointed that they couldn’t be more understanding. You may need to have a series of conversations like this, but don’t bring Steve around them until they promise to change their approach to him; he doesn’t deserve to be around people who are looking at him funny for something he can’t control, and that is relatively easy to accommodate. Also, it’s not clear how old your sister is, but it seems like maybe college age, if she still has a room but isn’t always there? If so, she’s old enough to behave better than this—I’d have a firm heart-to-heart with her about compassion, graciousness, and earbuds.

—Jamilah

More Advice From Slate

My fiancé was raised as a Reform Jew; I am a casual Christian. We have mutually decided not to circumcise our forthcoming son. His family is, to put it lightly, up in arms about our not hosting a bris. (“Because it’s a Jewish rite of passage!”) Through my fiancé’s sister, we were warned of my future mother-in-law’s plan to host a “surprise” bris at our house a week after the birth! I’m ready to fly off the handle. This isn’t completely out of character for her, but it seems like a new level of crazy and violation. How do I confront her about this and, God forbid, deal with a “surprise bris” if family and a rabbi show up at our door in a few months?