While my wife and I are mostly eye-to-eye on bills, etc., we are in a disagreement on where to live. We live in Texas, a state I loathe. I'm not from here. I grew up in Europe. My wife is from this area. She makes twice what I make. Both of us love the scenery and overall PNW vibe. I have been trying for years to get my wife to move. She finds every excuse in the book. Meanwhile, neither of us are getting younger. Our daughter is graduating HS soon. This leaves a kid in the house for several more years. Once my daughter is off on her own, I suggested being able to downsize (no real opposition there), maybe buy a nice double-wide trailer on our own land (no real opposition), and save money on taxes, etc., in the PNW close to a fairly large conurbation where we could work.
It's tough trying to get someone to see your PoV. Maybe do a spreadsheet with numbers to show her how you could get ahead elsewhere, keeping in mind her hobby. Big houses suck. Literally. Ours is ~2500sf and the upkeep is ridiculous. Maybe sell it as, "we could both do more with our respective hobbies if we had a cheaper outlay every month. We can only be in one room at a time, so having a lavish house is more to impress others than for our own benefit. I encourage you to pursue your hobby (within reason/set a budget maybe). Set a budget for you both outside of essential spending (housing/utilities/medical) and stick to it. I now no longer buy computers. I buy RPis and do things with them. They have a command line. I'm happy. My wife gets her happiness from attending sports games of our children. Her other hobby is gaming. Sell the idea of moving to a cheaper state with less taxes/cheaper property taxes and downsizing but keeping her hobby. It's all about compromise (but not your dignity). Remember, love is not a sentiment or emotion, it's an act of the will. Love wills the good of the other for the other. Find a way to make you both "happy" while giving you both what you want. I'm sure a nice, expensive house with high taxes and ugly upkeep costs would take a back seat to your wife's hobby (at least I would hope it would). Chart it out with numbers and present them. You owe it to yourself to stand up and set the tone, but do so with respect and tangible ideas that you can execute on. Everyone has great ideas, but almost no one can execute on them well.
As someone from the Gulf South who lived in the PNW for most of a decade:
There is a not insignificant chance your Southern wife will be incredibly miserable in the PNW. It is gorgeous and green but it is also grey, and if your wife has not lived in similar conditions before, it is very possible that the lack of Actual Sun will start giving her heavy seasonal depression.
A huge sun lamp will help. So will regular megadoses of vitamin D. But she may be like me and find that even with that, the urge to kill herself gets louder and louder every winter.
I moved back to my very culturally weird Southern birthplace a couple of years ago and that urge completely vanished.
Thank you for the information. Fortunately, we are both overcast lovers, so the SAD angle would likely not play a huge role. Growing up in Europe myself, I prefer 9 months of overcast and rain. I'm at a high risk for skin cancer, so this features into my desire to move as well.
For my wife, the primary reason is that her parents are here. She doesn't want to leave them, which I can understand, but at the same time, they are loaded and want for nothing. My parents are long gone, so I have zero attachment to the area other than my wife.