Just to throw my own story into the "been there, kiddo" stew, so the LW maybe feels less alone:

I was already pursuing a desire to write fiction as best I could while maintaining a reasonably stable life. I finished my MFA, got married, kept working on the book I'd started in grad school while doing freelance journalism to make ends meet and to keep my hard-working husband from feeling I was a deadbeat. Got terribly bogged down in the novel--its ambitions far outstripped my abilities--and right around the same time I was caught in a cycle of trying/failing/trying/failing to get pregnant. Writerly ambitions were stalled, hormonal fertility treatments made me suicidal, marriage was on the rocks, and then somewhat out of the blue, my childhood love of musical performance started haunting me again. Clearly I was trying to escape the present horrible moment, but in any case, I used piano and singing practice to procrastinate on my fiction, then discovered a late-blooming interest in and talent for jazz improvisation, and then almost ditched the husband and the whole baby-making craziness to become some kind of NYC-bound jazz nun. Luckily lots of therapy, couples counseling, and the act of quitting the fertility business (we decided to adopt instead) resulted in more sane decisions. Years later I now have one lovely child and a spot on the agency waiting list for another, a strong, battle-tested marriage, and a modest side-career as a local professional musician. And slowly I do a little writing, too, but without getting too nuts about it.

I know I'm incredibly lucky to have such a life. BUT (and this is the same point others have made) I also know I'll never be as technically good as I might have been if I'd started as a teenager, know I'll never be famous or get big recording label support, know I can't go on tour with small children at home, know that even if I finish one novel it may take ten years and be the only one. I've had to temper my desires and dreams with a big dose of reality. It's true what one poster said--all humans, not just artists, have to grow up and deal with this. The thing is, artists truly are different in some ways; there is a childlike, dream-weaver aspect to our personalities that HAS to be there, else we'd all be accountants and lawyers.

But dreams only take you so far. Once you step in and really start doing something--in LW's case, community theater or whatever--you have to face the fact that it only lives up to your romantic vision in brief moments. There are rude and irresponsible club owners, restaurant managers who try to stiff you when they didn't sell as much booze as they wanted, wedding clients who bitch because you can't fulfill some obscure request from the 1930s to please their Great Uncle Ted, band leaders who ditch you when a better player becomes available, and so on. Once in a while, though, you and your quartet decide to hit Joe Henderson's RECORDA-ME and it turns out like a great ocean of gorgeous melody and rhythm. So you put up with all the other BS and hang on to those lovely moments.

Be what you have to be, but know that life is all about limitations. Best of luck.

I agree with all the people who warn LW against marrying someone with a significantly higher sex drive than her--but is it necessary advice here? It sounds like she has already found a very good fit. How many 22-year-old men have you known who seem as patient about, perhaps even as indifferent to, his sexual inexperience as this guy does? I don't meant to sound cynical or imply that ALL twenty-something males are horny little rabbits...but I would bet good money that MOST of them are feeling the urge strongly, whether they act on it or not. As are most young women!