A woman shocked the internet when she said she and her husband sleep on different sides of the bed every night. A relationship expert thinks the practice 'sounds great.'

• "We do not have a regular side of the bed that we sleep on," a home renovation TikTok couple told viewers.
• "What kind of serial killer behavior is this," one commenter joked, as many others reacted aghast.

Last week, the TikToker Angelina Murphy strayed from her typical home renovation content. And instead shared information that got her followers — and the platform at large — up in arms.

Murphy, 29, who has an account with 688,000 followers that she shares with her 33-year-old husband, Skyler Johnson, wanted to see if fans could relate to their sleeping habits. "We do not have a regular side of the bed that we sleep on," she announced over the weekend. "It's never discussed; we just randomly pick a side when we go to sleep."

The video has drawn 1 million viewers as commenters reeled in disbelief and comical outrage, with some calling the couple "monsters." But Pepper Schwartz, a relationship expert and sociology professor, told Insider this week that the practice "sounds great," and that the intense reaction speaks more to our attachments to routine than anything peculiar with the couple's lifestyle.

Murphy told Insider she was compelled to take the temperature on TikTok after broaching the issue with a shocked friend. "We knew it was unusual," she said, "but we didn't realize it was this unusual."

Commenters did not hold back.

"What kind of serial killer behavior is this," one viewer wrote. "Even when I was single with my own bed I had my own side." Another added: "That is absolute anarchy."

Others had more practical concerns. "What about your nightstands? Like you just Willy nilly have your stuff everywhere?" one wrote.

"So you don't each have a specific pillow you like??!?" another asked.

In a follow-up video they posted one day later, Murphy and Johnson — who have been together for nearly 11 years and tied the knot in April — addressed the thousands of critical comments they received.

She explained that their nightstands were "basically glorified junk drawers" with interchangeable phone chargers on both sides and that their nighttime routine items were located in a shared bathroom vanity.

"We think it's funny," Murphy told Insider of the responses. "Lots of people calling us serial killers, there's bodies buried in our backyard. People literally unfollowed us." (While Murphy noticed a dip of roughly 500 followers, she said she wasn't exactly sure of the reason.)

'They're freed from a kind of possessiveness about order that most of us have,' a relationship expert said

Murphy told Insider that they have slept this way their whole relationship, and there's no rhyme or reason to when they switch – though they've never stayed on the same side for longer than a week. Even in the wake of the viral storm, they don't have any plans to change.

And at least one relationship expert thinks this behavior is a green flag. Pepper Schwartz, a sociology professor at the University of Washington, told Insider the sleeping arrangement could be ideal. "I think that they're freed from a kind of possessiveness about order that most of us have, and it makes their life a lot more flexible," she said.

Schwartz explained that humans are "creatures of habit," and the idea that someone doesn't have a habit is "somewhere between a curiosity and terrifying to people."

She added that there are often "assignments in relationships" – or loose routines around driving, or cooking and cleaning, or taking out the dog, for example. She also said that humans are a "pretty territorial kind of species" in terms of physical spaces around the home.

"The fact that these people have never decided that, 'OK, this is a way we order our lives together,' makes people nervous because it kind of questions the whole way everybody creates a couple life," Schwartz said.

According to Schwartz, the real story here is not that the couple is dysfunctional in any way, but that it illuminates our fierce ties to routine. "I think it's truly disturbing to people that somebody's living without a habit," she said.