Is sex important for a happy marriage?

We can sincerely believe that we often have sex, that our relationship and without it is good. It looks like this is self -deception. We simply do not realize our deep feelings.

Does happiness depend on marriage on the activity of sexual life? For some of us, the answer is obvious: yes, of course, it depends!

Meanwhile, almost half the research on this topic leads us to the answer “no”. And we are talking not only about the pairs that gave tribute to violent sex in the first years of marriage, but over the years have lost interest in it, but also about those who have just begun joint life. The relationship is far from always dependent on sex, the authors of these studies say.

Sounds unexpectedly. In addition, there are no less studies confirm that regular sex is vital for marriage. How to explain this contradiction and who is right?

Lindsay Hicks from the University of Florida suggested that the fact is how her psychologists raised the question. Usually, conducting a survey, respondents give time to think. And this can distort the reliability of the results.

According to Hicks, many people try to convince themselves that everything is fine in their relationship with a partner, despite rare sex, or that regular sex is not so important for a successful relationship. However, to convince yourself does not mean really feeling like that. But how to find this difference in the experiment?

The study of Lindsay Hicks https://efficens.es/ at the first stage was built according to the same scheme as the previous ones on this topic. 120 couples of newlyweds participated in it.

Husband and wife were interviewed separately. Everyone was asked to fill out the questionnaire. In particular, they were asked about how happy they are to their spouse and how often they have sex.

Now it was necessary to check the reliability of these answers. For this, Lindsay Hicks decided to use an “automatic” test that allows you to identify unconscious feelings.

The respondent first shows the picture, and then the word with positive (amazing, charming, outstanding) or with a negative (unpleasant, disgusting, terrible) meaning. At this moment, you need to answer as quickly as possible, “positive” this word or “negative”, pressing a particular computer key.

The reaction speed is fixed by a special device. If the respondent quickly reacts to “positive” words and slowly to “negative”, this means that he instinctively refers to what is depicted in the picture. And vice versa.

For her task, Lindsay Hicks changed this test somewhat, breaking it into several stages. The first was the control: the participant determined the meaning of the words, but the picture was not shown to him. After that, he was shown a control photograph (his own image) or a photo of a spouse.

The results of the questionnaire showed that satisfaction with the partner does not depend on the frequency of sex.

But the “unconscious” test gave opposite results: respondents who had sex twice a week and more often issued a “positive” reaction to the image of a partner.

And vice versa, those who rarely had sex reacted as if their spouse caused them a rejection. In control tests, this effect did not appear.

How to interpret the results of this study? They do not mean that those who rarely have sex are lying, saying that relations arrange them. Maybe they sincerely believe in it, but it is possible that this is self -deception.

Of course, the results of Lindsay Hicks need further verification. But if new studies confirm her conclusions, the family couples will think about.