If you want a comfortably warm Winter forget mainland Spain.

The Canaries have a much better Winter climate.
The south of Tenerife has lots of expat communities and there are plenty of alternative rural attractions outside of these areas and on the neighbouring islands as well, which have easy regular access by daily ferries.
Tenerife is also normally the least expensive of the Canaries.

One of our key investigations when we were coming here was how far to the airport, how many flights an where from. We are 35 mins from Faro airport in Portugal all the cheap airlines from UK and Germany fly there from dozens of airports. We then have Sevilla 75mins, Beja 75mins, Lisbon 150mins and Jerez 180mins.

Not sure about direct flights from SA though. Maybe Lisbon perhaps Madrid then Heathrow and Frankfurt.

Correct.
An idea is to put a weather widget on your computer and change locations to get some idea of the weather/temp.

Have you considered Ceuta and Melilla? They are settled in the north of Africa and they have border with Morocco, buth they're still Spain.

Canary Islands are well connected to the UK and peninsula, but perhaps you'll be better communicated with your partner through land.

I think if the OP gave us an idea of their 'comfortably warm' winter temperatures we could make better suggestions - so many variants like someone else just said. We have single figures at home much of the time in the past week but it's nearer 20 and sometimes above in malaga, so if your house can be made snug in the evenings you can have the best of both worlds. All depends.................

thanks for all the great responses. its given me a lot to consider. i dont really mind the low temperatures of mountain areas as long as im not too far from warmer temperatures. a few have comnmented that in andalucia you can be a short drive from the heat. i would probably take a car with me but i need to check these types of places for accessibility from airports as i would fly once the cars there.

The only airport I can speak for is Malaga, and you'll find a huge range of locations within an easy 45min/hour from AGP. Coastal, inland village, inland campo, flat, mountainous, wooded - you name it!