How Often Do Married Couples Have Sex?

It’s an interesting question with answers that may surprise you. What is the average amount of sex married couples are having?

The short answer is, it depends on who you ask.

How often do married couples have intercourse?

There are plenty of different polls out there that lay out different statistics. Here are some of their findings:

• Newsweek magazine found in its poll that married couples have sex about 68.5 times a year, or a little more than once a week on average. The magazine also found that married couples have sex 6.9 times per year more than those who have never been married.
• According to a University of Chicago Study called “The Social Organization of Sexuality: Sexual Practices in the United States,” about 32 percent of married couples have sex two or three times a week, 80 percent of married couples have sex a few times a month or more, and 47 percent say they have sex a few times a month.
• In another study, this time by David Schnarch, PhD, who studied more than 20,000 couples, only 26% of couples are having sex once a week, more likely once or twice a month.

There is No “Normal”

So, how often do married couples make love? As you may have noticed from the large variance of these statistics, it’s easy to see that there is no “normal”. In many studies, researchers and therapists said it really depends on the couple.

Each person’s sex drive is different, each couple’s marriage is different, and their daily lives are different. Since there are so many factors at play, it’s really hard to know what is “normal.” The better question to ask is, what is normal for you and your spouse? Or what would each of you like your “normal” to be?

If both of you are happy with once a week, or once a month, then it really doesn’t matter what other couples are doing. But if one or both of you aren’t happy, then perhaps you can negotiate a new normal. In most couples, one person is almost always going to want sex more, and the other is going to want sex less. It’s how you handle it in order to help both of you that will make the difference.

How Much Sex to Be Happy?

One interesting study actually looked at happiness as it related to the amount of sex. While it may seem as if the more sex the better, there actually was an amount where happiness leveled off. The study was published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and surveyed 30,000 couples in the U.S. for 40 years.

So what is the leveling off amount of sex when related to happiness? Once a week, according to researchers. In general more sex does help increase happiness, but daily isn’t necessary. Anything above once a week didn’t show a significant rise in happiness.

Of course, don’t let that be an excuse not to have more sex; perhaps you and your spouse love having it more or less often. The important thing is to communicate and figure out what works for you both. Sex can be a great stress reliever, and it can bring you closer as a couple. So if you both want more, then go for it!

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