Couples Rank the Most Important Factors in Happy Long-Term Relationships—and Sex Doesn’t Make the Top 10

Glamour Suzannah Weiss 2/18/2016 Spring is here time to start booking those outdoor venues for your tented wedding. New England is the absolute best place... Read More

44X83 Pressley - 3Glamour

Suzannah Weiss 2/18/2016

Spring is here time to start booking those outdoor venues for your tented wedding. New England is the absolute best place to enjoy the beautiful environment on that special day. We are affiliated with almost all of the venues available and could help you find that special location that speaks to you. Visit our website for some great pictures and information. Remember we are just a phone call away.

Here is a good article on long term relationships from our friend at Glamour Magazine. Check it out it is very insightful.

When you think about the times when you’re most happy in your relationship, you might picture sharing an inside joke or doing something together that you both love. At least those were the most popular answers among the 5,000 people surveyed by Dr. Meg John Barker and Professor Jacqui Gabb, authors of The Secrets of Enduring Love: How to Make Relationships Last. If your image of what’s best about your relationship takes place in the bedroom, it turns out you’re actually in the minority—sex didn’t even make the top 10.

Instead, the number-one answer to the question “What do you like best about your relationship?” was “laughing together,” followed in order by “sharing values and interests,” “being best friends,” “being cared for and feeling supported,” and “feeling safe and secure.” The remaining top 10 were other abstract qualities of relationships rather than specific activities.

These parts of relationships can all be experienced in the bedroom, of course, but the researchers take the results to mean sex isn’t as important as we sometimes make it. “People are warned against having a ‘sexless’ relationship—as if it is the worst thing imaginable and will inevitably lead to you separating. The good news is these messages about sex are absolutely wrong,” the authors wrote in The Daily Mail. “Our research shows many couples enjoy happy, long-term relationships while having less sex—or no sex at all—over time.”

The researchers also showed couples photographs and asked them to identify which ones characterized their relationships. Most were more likely to identify with a couple cuddling on a couch than one in bed.

Nevertheless, two-thirds of the people surveyed said they were satisfied with their sex lives, and frequency of sex wasn’t correlated with relationship satisfaction, demonstrating that sex doesn’t have to define your relationships to enhance it.

“Don’t panic if sex becomes more or less frequent over time, or more or less fulfilling. It may change many times in a long relationship with fluctuations in physical intimacy and discrepancies in sexual desire: what you want, how often you want it, and what it means to you,” the authors wrote. “Expecting and accepting these changes can be more helpful than trying to hold on to the same type and frequency of physical intimacy.”

Barker added in an email to Glamour, “There’s not just one secret to long-lasting relationships but many. Different things work for different people, and at different times in their relationships—so it’s about finding out what works for you.”

 

Read Next:

The Piece of Online Dating Advice That Could Change Everything

Glamour Suzannah Weiss 2/18/2016 Spring is here time to start booking those outdoor venues for your tented wedding. New England is the absolute best place... Read More

The Piece of Online Dating Advice That Could Change Everything