I recently summoned a trusted ex to a bar. I wanted to enquire him a question, but I wasn't certain I wanted to know the answer. It took me one round of drinks to get to it. "Take I e'er done annihilation . . . weird? Or gross? Like, in bed? But non, like, in bed," I added. "Like, sleeping." He pretended to recall nigh it, but I could tell he already had something in mind. Finally, he began to speak. I drained my whiskey ginger. He told me the story of a nighttime correct out of Paranormal Activity. A story that laid bare the true evil that I've always suspected exists inside me. I won't repeat it hither, considering I am a lady/considering my parents read Men'southward Health.

I bought the next round and tried to forget.

For a few days, I'd been badgering male acquaintances about the sleep habits of the women in their lives. Past the time I confronted my ex, I'd heard enough stories of drooling and sleep-talking to know that anybody does something. I have my ain encyclopedia of night horror stories. I once watched a homo sleepwalk across my bedroom, pee in
and around my wastebasket, and then sleepwalk out of the room. I was too spooked to follow him, and so I don't know where else in my home he peed that night. When I mentioned it, he laughed and said that it's "just something that happens when I drink whiskey."

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Nobody sleeps well with a new partner, and some of u.s. even accept problem sleeping with people we've been with for a long, long time

Nosotros've reevaluated so many things about dating. Nosotros've changed our melody on how we meet (Tinder!) and how we ask for consent (often!), and I movement that we modify the rules of sleepovers, too. Nobody sleeps well with a new partner, and some of us even have problem sleeping with people we've been with for a long, long time. I used to think that if I didn't slumber with someone after nosotros had sex, the sexual practice would be somehow cheapened, but curling up together for one-half an hour afterwards sex can exist just equally pleasant a capstone every bit spending the night together, and yous won't spend the adjacent day feeling destroyed, resenting your partner for disrupting your sleep cycle. Simply earlier you barrel out of your lover's flat nether the banner of enlightenment, it can help to understand some of the anxieties at play here.

In bed: woman can't sleep

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I, for case, accept always harbored a fear that I'll unknowingly do something unattractive in slumber. When I'm on a date, I may appear mannerly and relaxed—even smooth, if I'g on my third drinkable—but really every organ is engaged in an effort not to exercise annihilation ugly. When I'm lying side by side to someone, as much as I desire to fall comatose, I'k as well battling the temptation to remain awake and totally in control of my faculties. Maybe the Thanksgiving-dinner-level fatigue men get afterward they ejaculate overwhelms these concerns, or maybe I'm just extra cocky-conscious. When you regard information technology as a sex activity human action, sleeping next to someone is equally intimate as it gets. My trunk might beguile me in whatsoever number of ways, or my mate might study me in the expressionless of nighttime—drooling, pilus akimbo—and decide that I am hideous. Nosotros like to believe in a social contract that prevents us from judging each other for things we do while nosotros're sleeping, but I did judge the sleep-pisser. And fifty-fifty if my ex didn't guess me per se, the incident conspicuously carries an outsize weight in his memory of our time together.

If my ex had told me I snored, I would have spiraled.

On the other mitt, I was relieved to acquire that my worst slumber infraction, horrifying as it was, was an isolated occurrence (or and so I hope). A much greater fearfulness is that I habitually practise something that disrupts the sleep of my bedfellows: If my ex had told me I snored, I would have spiraled. Like many women, I often struggle to residuum my own needs with my pathological courtesy. (Once on a aeroplane, a man asked me if he could sit in my alley seat, because his legs were "too long for the middle"—they weren't—and I said yes, even though I'd paid actress to sit on the aisle.) The idea of someone else losing slumber on my behalf literally keeps me upward at nighttime. When I said as much to a lite-sleeping friend, she nodded somberly. "I haven't slept well in two weeks considering I feel bad kicking out the guy I'chiliad dating," she said. "He lives an 60 minutes away, and I don't want to inconvenience him." A martyr for the ages: She would rather subject herself to half-dozen hours locked in sleepless torment than field of study a man to ane hour on public transit.

Man cannot sleep because his wife snores

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Especially early on on, there's a good chance that your mate volition be secretly relieved if you don't stay over, but you still accept to exist delicate about leaving (and fifty-fifty more than delicate about asking someone to leave). Because of the stigma rom-com civilisation has placed on leaving afterwards sex, broaching the discipline deserves a larger give-and-take. Be specific, honest, and, ideally, self-deprecating nearly why you don't want to sleep over. Saying, "I snore and I don't desire to proceed you lot up, then I probably won't stay over" makes you seem respectful and responsible, whereas proverb, "I accept to get up really early tomorrow" equally yous're putting on your dress makes you seem similar a jerk. Even if you really practice have to get up early tomorrow, the context makes it feel like a rejection. If there'southward a window, deploy your excuse earlier, precoital, when you're on your fashion up to her flat or your flat—when, in brusque, you lot're sure it's on. When you move to get out afterward, it won't feel similar a slap in the face. Information technology volition experience like the plan.

Then, when you're starfished in your ain bed, don't lose whatever sleep over it: She's starfished in her bed, thinking not of the impaired face yous make while y'all're sleeping only rather of your six-pack and lumberjack artillery.