We're in this situation, and it's definitely a mixed bag. We work in two cities about an hour and a half apart, and so have chosen to live in a beautiful rural area at the mid-point. It's WAY less expensive than city A, where we were living, and moderately more expensive than small city B. We have a lifestyle here that we never would have been able to afford in city A. For comparison, we sold our 660 sqft 1 br condo for $320K (!) and bought our modest, 1800 sq ft house on a 1/2 acre in a very desirable location for just under $400K.
Then we added an hour commute each way to our lives. Each. It sucks. Yesterday, DH, who gets up at 5:30am to get to work for 7am, fell asleep on the couch at 7:30pm and woke up at 9pm to go to bed. That doesn't happen often, but it's not unusual either. In the evenings, we get home, make dinner, and either do 1 thing around the house and garden OR relax for a while. Weekends are always a competition between the house/garden things that need doing and wanting/needing other down time.
That said, we have no regrets. When we're not working, we think we have the best life in the whole world, and I could NOT go back to living in the city. For me, it's doable because I only have to commute 3-4 days a week, 8 months of the year (teaching). One year, DH worked out a deal of longer days 4 days a week and then a 3 day weekend. The long days were tough, but the weekends were awesome. If you can do ANY telecommuting, it will make a huge difference.
It's not an easy decision. But for us, it's motivation to get to FI--or living on one salary--sooner rather than later. If DH could work locally, and I kept my less consistent commute, we'd be living the life of Riley! And long term, this is likely where we want to stay, so we're hoping its the jobs that change location, rather than us.
One thing that helped us was renting in this area for a year--is that an option for you? Give it a low-commitment try and see how it goes. We actually moved back to city A after a year of rural commuting, before we realized the trade-offs were worth it and made the permanent move back to the country...