Whether you’re married or not, you’ve probably heard about the stigma that surrounds married couples and sex — the jokes and the talk around the watercooler are evidence married couples’ sex lives might not be as lively as they were when they first exchanged vows.
To get to the bottom of this, SheKnows spoke with experts to find out if there is truth to these rumors, what is causing the lack of sex between committed partners and, most important, what we can do about it.
Fact or fiction
Does sex really fizzle out after people tie the knot? Of course, it depends on the couple, but overall, it looks like the rumors may be true.
“I don’t think there’s any question that married couples are having less sex than they used to,” Xanet Pailet, a sex and intimacy coach and author of Living an Orgasmic Life, tells SheKnows. In fact, according to the latest National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, which was conducted in 2010 (it’s only done once a decade), the average married couple has sex about once a week. However, 20 percent of couples are only having sex once a month, which is considered a sexless marriage.
And this lack of sex is on the rise. There is a decline in sex overall according to a study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, which found that American adults had sex about nine fewer times per year in the early 2010s than they did in the late 1990s. While that took into account people who were both married and unmarried, it also reports “sexual frequency declined among the partnered (married or living together).”
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Pailet says she’s pretty sure these numbers are likely underreported, as it doesn’t take into consideration the number of couples who stay in their marriage for “financial reasons or for the children, but have completely unsatisfying sex lives.”
