I had an ex who didn't want me to do something. He was being angry and unpleasant about it, which should have been my cue to dump him, but instead I was being manipulated. He would essentially say "if you want to do that then you don't like me and you're mean" and I didn't want to be the bad guy who hurt him. I pleaded "I really want to do this, it's my dream". His answer was to tell me "but you're my dream". This was not romantic, this was manipulation.

A) He was jealous that I had dreams other than fucking him. He actually couldn't care less about the dream itself, he was just afraid that I'd fuck another guy if I was far from him doing other things, so he was being manipulative and saying "I should be your dream too" when really he was conflating professional dreams with his own sexual dreams.

B) Him saying I was his dream didn't mean shit. It could be romantic if a guy says you're his dream and that makes him work hard so he can buy a big house for your kids to run around and then keep working hard to treat you to nice gifts and vacations all your life. It could be romantic if a guy said you're his dream and he wants to support your career and move to follow you where your career takes you. But he was doing neither of those things. He was an unemployed stoner and his dream was to fuck me multiple times a day while blocking my opportunities.

I'm sorry for the crude language. What I'm trying to say here is that just because a guy makes you his priority doesn't mean it's worth anything of value. A lot of guys will beg you and manipulate you to make you stay. They don't see you as a full person with your own trials and aspirations. You only exist to make their life awesome. They see you as worse than a pickme, they see you as a manic pixie dream girl.