How to update Mac OS when the users folder is on an external drive

Is there a way to update Mac OS when the installation is on the internal ssd but the users account and all my data is on an external ssd?

Because I was on Monterey and everything was working fine until I went to update to the latest version of Monterey (a lot of my software isn’t compatible with Ventura yet), but then it moved the users folder back to the internal ssd and all my settings were wiped as if it was a fresh installation and not an update.

So, my question is: is there a way to update Mac OS with it being on a separate drive from the users folder/data without it wiping all the settings and changing the users folder location? I don’t want to have to go through this every time I update the OS.

Thank you for your time