Are you aware of research re the correlations between marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction?

Just curious if you are aware of research regarding the correlation between general marital satisfaction and specifically satisfaction with the sexual aspect of the relationship. Is there a correlation between the two, and if so, how strong is the correlation.

Also, would you say that marital satisfaction generally leads to greater satisfaction with the sexual aspect of the relationship, or vice versa? Or is to too difficult to establish a cause/effect relationship and better to say that the two really go “hand in hand”?

I will keep my eye out for research addressing this topic and make it available through this blog.

From the work I’ve done with couples my take would be that most sexual problems arise because of marital dissatisfaction. Fighting, arguments, and disagreements (especially those that take a disrespectful or heated route) do not act well as aphrodisiacs. Sometimes what we call “make-up sex” can be a powerful experience and leave a couple feeling temporarily more bonded than before and make the fighting a seemingly worthwhile endeavor. But this sentiment doesn’t usually last long. Spousal negativity can easily spiral and become overwhelming, to the point that the sexual frequency is very much affected.

Stereotypically men will be the ones to complain about the frequency of sex (perceive wife as not willing to have sex often enough, perceive wife as not willing to meet their needs, perceive wife as uncaring). Since women are more susceptible to the psychology of sex (her feelings are intricately tied to her libido), when the relationship is sour the sex suffers. Women will stereotypically complain of the quality of sex (perceive husband as not willing to engage in enough foreplay, perceive husband as not concerned enough regarding whether or not she achieves orgasm, perceive husband as lacking romance, etc.). Whenever these feelings are dominant in a relationship the sexual frequency suffers as well as intimacy in general.

However, this is not always the case. There are many couples who deal with some sort of sexual dysfunction that is either medically/hormonally based, that is affected by sexual orientation, or that stems from childhood, adolescent or adult trauma. When these issues are dealt within a loving coupleship where they can be discussed openly and respectfully, the sexual outcome can be quite positive. In fact, intimacy on all levels is usually heightened. In these cases marital satisfaction can be high, even though sexual satisfaction is not.

Getting professional help in all of these cases is an important step when the problems are not improving and when they have been in place for longer than several months.

Ideally, sex will get better and better as the relationship grows, is strengthened and as the couple continues in the journey of discovering self and other in this relationship we call marriage.

Some articles I looked up that you might find interesting are:

1. Sex Better than Money for Happiness
2. The Developmental Course of Marital Dysfunction: This research shows that sex plays a bigger role for white males on whether or not they see their marriage as “successful” than it does for black men. So race and culture are also factors in perception of marital happiness.
3. The Way to Marital Happiness: This research shows that what makes marriages successful more than other factors like sex are the amount of parental happiness one grew up with, one’s own childhood happiness, and levels of attachment to parents.