Cant agree on city. What would you do?

Has anyone been in this situation before?

My partner and I started our careers in orange county ca and it was ROUGH (21 and 22 at time). We were making long commutes for squat. Granted we were just kids and thats sort of a right of passage to work up in your career.

Like so many others, we decided to move to texas for a better life. When we first moved we both loved it. We both changed to tech and increased our salaries ten fold.

But after our second summer I was genuinely done. We are going on 3 years here now and I have wanted out for 2 years now. We have had so so many conversations around this and every time we hit the same dead end.

He doesnt want to move back. He feels like california was the last time he felt very sad and for good reason I get it. He thinks its going to suck us of all our money (which lets be frank it is more expensive but for a reason). Now that we make money I genuinely think life would be so different. We would have nature, weather and activities back in our life. We wouldnt be stuck inside half the year and we could actually afford a home and life on our salaries now.

What would you do? Have you ever been in this situation? He suggested moving from austin where we are to dallas but other than having more activities to do I dont see it being a long term difference.