Sharing your location with someone has somehow become a relationship milestone. At some point, you go from “text me when you get home” to having a tiny moving dot that tells another person exactly where you are at any given time. Romantic.

A Life360 survey of 1,000 adults found that 95% of people in relationships use some form of location sharing. They check those apps about seven times a day on average. Nearly 60% of newer users said it made the relationship feel more official, and Gen Z ranked exchanging locations above posting each other on social media.

We’ve also had years to get used to this. Find My Friends launched in 2011, and Apple folded location sharing into Find My in 2019. Knowing exactly where your partner is has become remarkably normal.

There are perfectly reasonable reasons for it. Maybe you want to know they made it home after a late flight. Maybe you’re figuring out when to start dinner or whether they’re still 40 minutes away. Long-distance couples can get some comfort from opening the app and seeing the other person going about their day. The trouble starts when checking becomes reassurance you need over and over.

Nearly Every Couple Shares Their Location Now. Psychologists Say That Can Get Complicated.

Seeing where your partner is can be comforting. It can also give an anxious brain even more material to dwell on. Psychology Today cites research showing that couples who use location sharing out of jealousy or distrust report lower satisfaction in the relationship. A 2026 study found something else interesting. Some people felt better once they could see where their partner was. Others checked the app more.

And anyone who has ever stared at a motionless Find My dot and wondered why their boyfriend has been parked behind a CVS for 22 minutes can probably see how that happens.

Psychologists at Unobravo suggest paying attention to what happens when someone wants to stop sharing their location. “If that request triggers anxiety, suspicion, or conflict, the sharing is probably not being experienced calmly,” they wrote.

That’s probably the better question to ask. How would you feel if your partner stopped sharing tomorrow? Mildly inconvenienced because now you have to text them about dinner? Or immediately suspicious about where they’re going and why they don’t want you to know?

A GPS app can tell you somebody is at the grocery store, the gym, or sitting in traffic. It can’t tell you whether your relationship is okay. Unfortunately, there still isn’t an app for that.