Leave IB for my GF?

Hi all,

For context I (22M) have been with my girlfriend (22F) for about 4.5 years. She is truly the love of my life and I cannot imagine living without her. My senior year I was fortunate enough to land an IB analyst gig at a west coast bank. My gf is a year younger than me in school and supported my decision to take the job while she finished up. She has a full-time job lined up in the Midwest as well.

Fast forward to present and I’ve been on the desk about 6 months and feel like i’ve made the biggest mistake of my life. The distance is extremely challenging and on top of that I really dread the city I live in and have no community. We are both getting really tired of the facetime relationship and every day I dread my decision. I also don’t like banking enough for any of this to feel worth it.

I’ve started to look into jobs back near her and the only thing i’m finding is very entry level finance roles (~70k). While I cannot imagine losing her, I’m unsure if it would be career suicide for me to take more of an entry level role back near her. I don’t really care about going into PE or other high finance roles at this point.

Could anyone give any advice or insight?

Edit: Wow this blew up 😂