When someone doesn’t take your career seriously, that can be a pretty big relationship red flag. 

Just because someone’s career is a little less traditional doesn’t mean that it’s not a real career. I’ve dealt with this plenty of times in my life. I’ve taken a somewhat less traditional path, and sometimes I feel myself having to justify it to someone else. But the thing is, your life is your life, and you’re the only one who has to live it. As long as you’re making choices to feed yourself, you’re in the clear. I feel like this often happens to people who pursue careers in the arts. There is not always a straight line you can draw between career moves when you’re in the arts. Sometimes it looks way more like a jagged line. There are ups and downs and survival jobs and moves that might not make sense to anyone else. And it may seem like «less important» work than other jobs out there, but the arts are deeply important, and the folks pursuing them should be taken seriously. It’s a career, after all, and a difficult one at that. The woman in this story was in the thick of that misunderstanding, and her boyfriend wasn’t giving a lot of leeway.
When you’re an actor, onstage or on-camera intimacy is part of the job. It’s hard to limit yourself to roles where you don’t have to do that, and it’s an important part of acting. But some folks outside of the industry don’t totally understand that, and read too much into it. In my mind, it’s acting. It’s not real intimacy; it’s a highly choreographed scene that two characters are playing. Especially onstage, in a musical. These things are hammered down to the last detail. They’re not exactly romantic. The boyfriend in this story didn’t quite understand that, though.