My boyfriend and I have been together for years and we are only in our early 20s.

My parents can’t stand my boyfriend. One of their reasons is that he is a pothead. For me, that is not a dealbreaker.

My sister also smokes pot. She has severe Tourette’s, and the pot is the only thing that helps it. The thing is, my boyfriend has Tourette’s too. Pot helps it, but he also has to take clonidine 4 times a day to stop his tics. Because of this he doesn’t currently have any noticeable tics, but if it weren’t for his clonidine it would be very noticeable and vocal. When my boyfriend was growing up, his family used to yell at him to stop his tics because it was “annoying,” whereas my sister had full support from my family.

My parents are always talking about how my boyfriend smokes pot to “get messed up,” while my sister smokes pot for medicine. It drives me crazy that they are constantly making these comparisons and judging him. They let my sister smoke in front of them and they even have driven her to get her pot.

My parents were not perfect in the past, my dad was an alcoholic until he got clean when I was 13 and my mom handled it so wrong that she made my sister smash his stash of beer bottles in his truck when she was just a kid. My mom also had a stealing compulsion from stores, which she no longer has.

Anyway, last night my mom and I were coming home from the movies and my mom once again starts talking about my boyfriend. We were talking about a painting from the 1600s that a father painted of his daughter.

My mom starts saying that only a father can see his daughter that way, because the girl in the picture looked innocent. Then she starts crying and I asked her what’s wrong. She said it reminds her of my dad. She said a couple days ago, my dad saw my boyfriend putting weed buds in his one-hitter. My dad’s brother died last year, and she said that my dad said that if his brother had been alive to see a guy his daughter was dating doing that, that he would have grabbed him by his shirt and told him to walk home. My dad said he wants to do that but can’t because if he does he will lose me. Apparently my dad was crying and said he feels like he can’t protect me.

I told my mom that she and my dad were not perfect either. I feel so tired of the guilt tripping. I’m making the decision to stay with my boyfriend and I wish they would respect it. I cried all night thinking of my dad feeling hurt by my decisions.

Are my parents right?