This Is How Often You Should Be Sleeping Over Your SO’s Apartment, Experts Say
When you're in a relationship, sleeping over each other's places can often become part of your everyday routines. Cuddling up with the person you love feels so natural, and waking up next to them feels like something you could do every morning. Plus, if their place is closer to your work, all the better. But how often should you sleep over your SO's apartment? Is every night of the week OK? How about every other night, or just on weekends? If it was up to me, I'd spend every night cuddling with my boyfriend, but that can easily begin to resemble living together, which may not be something we're ready for just yet. So, where's that happy medium between sleeping over your SO's place on the reg, and actually living together?
I spoke to three experts, and they all said there isn't really a written-in-stone answer to how often you should or shouldn't be sleeping over your SO's place. The answer really just depends on your relationship and how each of you feels. Sleeping over "too much is not about a particular number of times per week or month," Chris Armstrong, certified relationship coach, tells Elite Daily. "Instead, it is about when someone begins to lose a little bit of their independence and lines begin to blur about whether they are really living together. Think about a time when you've told a friend, 'We're basically living together. I have most of my clothes there, and I really only go home to do laundry.' When it gets to this point, it may feel good in the moment, but we rarely ask ourselves if the relationship is ready for it and, for that matter, if we are ready for it."
Sleeping over can seem like the normal thing to do in a relationship, but sometimes it's easy to overlook the fact that it's a more serious commitment than we think, Armstrong says. "Our tendency is to just do what feels right and, per the usual, sex and closeness feel right early and often in dating situations and relationships," he explains. "Sleeping over is a lovely thing to do when dating," life coach Nina Rubin tells Elite Daily. But "it's too much if you feel discombobulated and like you can't get your bearings, [and] it's too little if you and your partner both feel disconnected," she says.
How often you sleep over your SO's place is a matter of how comfortable you and your partner are spending that much time together. "The frequency is really about maintaining some independence while managing expectations. It can be really easy and feel really good to sleep over every day, but the more that happens, the more you lose that healthy amount of independence we all need to maintain our autonomy and confidence," Armstrong says. To ensure that you're maintaining your autonomy, "You should never be there more than you are in your own house," relationship expert and author Alexis Nicole White, tells Elite Daily. But that's hard, especially when you just want to spend every waking (and sleeping) moment with bae.
As easy and as tempting as it may seem to spend all your time at your SO's place, finding time for yourself is important, too. If you begin to feel like you're losing some of your independence, like Armstrong says, and you can't fathom the idea of sleeping alone, it may be best decrease how often you sleep over bae's. But again, every relationship is different. Each couple has their own set of lines and boundaries, so what may be too much for you and your boo is just enough for me and mine.
If you and your partner are comfortable spending every night together, go for it! Just remember to do a self check-in every once in a while. Ask yourself if your relationship is ready for that much time spent together, and how you are feeling about your own independence. Adjust as you see fit!
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