A while back, I posted this.
tl;dr: It actually turned out to be kind of moot because his employer is now trying to enforce RTO once a week. So we're back in VA. But that didn't happen until several months later, by which point we'd already hashed it out.
Both of us were feeling unheard and, TBH I wasn't in the best place mentally because of stress related to an ongoing project at my job that took up almost all of last year. There were also some issues with my access to ADHD medication and the dose needed to be increased. I was drinking 6-8 cans of sugar-free Red Bull a day to self-medicate, which worsened an already vicious cycle.
I think what finally got him to understand where I was coming from was when I lost my insurance due to my COBRA eligibility expiring last November. I'd seen it coming for months, and had been looking for a job since May. The insurance I would've been offered through my job at the time had a very high deductible, was expensive, and covered less. Even the best individual options on the exchange in KY are barely better than nothing, let alone compared to the insurance I had.
The cratering of the job market in big tech added to an already difficult challenge. After all, the thinking goes, if there's available talent in more "desirable" locations, why bother taking a chance on someone in the boonies? I wanted to stay in big tech not just for the paycheck, but mostly because my skills are pretty niche and I didn't want to have to learn things in which I had no interest just to get a job at a company that pays 50-60% less and thinks that they're doing me a favor by "allowing" me to work from home twice a week.
I got an offer in November, but with a January start date, so there was still a gap in coverage. My savings were able to pay for everything out of pocket, including the $400 generic version of one of my meds. But it obviously caused a lot of stress. Seeing my efforts to avoid that and still having to stress out over something that he said would "turn out fine" clued him in a little bit and got him to realize that maybe I wasn't catastrophizing.
This job pays a little less, but is much less stressful and is a good opportunity to work in an area in which I have little experience. It's at a nonprofit, so my skills are being used for good, which is nice.
With regard to our dynamic, I needed to own my reluctance to engage with anyone outside the house. I started volunteering at the local animal shelter, which helped a lot more than I ever thought it would. Both of us started small group workout classes at a small gym, so that also nudged me a bit more out of my shell. By the time he got the word about RTO, I'd become a bit attached to where we were (plus, I'd taken that job thinking that we were in KY for the long haul), so I was sad to leave.
He did try to find something else, and ran into a problem similar to what I'd encountered: low salaries for his level and type of experience and limited upward career prospects. I didn't and would never wish that on him, but I think he better understands that I wasn't being picky or acting in bad faith when deciding where to apply and where to interview.
Thanks. That's the conclusion I'm slowly coming to, as well. I've given your words some thought and I think it's willing to have another conversation when we're both in a good place mentally and emotionally. He's been stressed because of the previously impending shutdown, so it probably didn't help that I brought this up without considering that.
ETA: I think part of this stems from a desire for us to build our own life together rather than us living in a place that only one of us has ties to. This was one of the things I was insecure about in my previous relationship because I moved in with him. So it always felt like his place (his house, his family, his friends, etc) and I had to fit into it rather than us finding our own way. To be fair, that relationship was a bad idea for several reasons (but that's often the case in one's 20s), but I think this is a sore spot due to my history of being kicked out as a youth and, for several years, having to live in places where I didn't have any say in simple things like furniture and decor. I don't want him to feel like that (which is part of why I'm hesitant about the Atlanta area) and I don't want to feel like that (which is part of why I wasn't keen on living here long-term).
Edit 2: Your point about thinking about what we want rather than where we want to live is a better way to frame it. We've been so fixated on the places (or rather, our perceptions of some places) rather than considering what it is we want out of a place to live.