Marital Happiness and pre-marital sex
 

Having grown up with 'sex, drugs, and rock & roll' I'm predisposed to view sex casually. With the changes in my life I've started to ask questions. Here's a statement I've heard and wondered about -

Do middle-aged couples, and in particular middle-aged women, have more satisfying sex lives during marriage if they abstained from sexual activity or if they delayed sexual activity.

I found three references, the first two said yes, the third say no. I'll list all three.

What surprises me the most is these three sentences from an abstract...

"Results indicated no significant relationship between the experience of premarital sexual intercourse and marital satisfaction of men or women. This seems to say early-sex has no affect.

However, men, who had more premarital partners and cohabitation experience, were less satisfied with their marriages.This seems to say men are less happy with more early-sex

For women, younger onset of sexual activity and larger number of premarital partners was related to lower marital satisfaction."This seems to say women are less happy with more early-sex

Here are the three links -

Abstract only, for above three sentences.

Master's dissertation - pdf file

This link which ultimately ends up at the Journal of Family Psychology

There does seem to be some evidence arguing in favor of marriage satisfaction and delayed sexual activity.

Anyone who wants to point out how the three sentences with the red highlights make sense - 'I'm all ears.'

My experience has been that marriage always seemed to screw up a perfectly good sexual relationship.

And it makes men live longer, to boot. No wonder marriage as an institution is fading.

The wife and I are going strong for 29 years. :D

41 years here.

We have been married almost 58 years. We did have premarital sex, but not with other partners. I am of the opinion that premarital sex does not help a marriage. I think it is kind of like eating your dessert before your dinner.

Dude!! how old are you. :D

premarital?

are you kind of assuming a few things? like everyone wants to get married, or will eventually?

(marriage is a relic of patriarchal society. hint: not good.)

Maybe the people with fewer partners dont know what they are missing and are thus more likely to be happy with their spouse? :laugh2:

Hmmm? Would your marriage have lasted longer if you had not had premarital sex?

The true answer to future happiness is the mother-in-law
 

If I had only known. A woman will become her mother.

X1 was pretty hot when we married in college. Her mother was a pig. Ten years and two kids later, mother in law told my wife it was time to ignore my wants and express hers (which was pigging out). X1 went from 5'5" 125 to 210 pounds in a year and became an ex.

X2 was better looking. Her mother was trim, but divorced. All the new mother in law could talk about was the faults of her ex. After 3 years, all X2 could talk about was my faults. Nevermind that she didn't work, we were living below the level that I lived at when X1 had a great engineering job. She thought it was my fault, even though I was making more than I used to.

The current wife's mother has a thing for older guys. The mother is a few years older than me, still gets pickup lines the 40-50 crowd and is happily married to a guy who could be my father. My current wife, going on 14 years of marriage is 14 years younger than me, but looks younger. I couldn't think of a better relationship.

That was pretty much exactly what I was thinking after reading this.

Would you buy a car without test driving it first?

Sex before marriage is a detail.

Do it? Don't do it, it really means very little when looked at with a big picture point of view.

Finding someone who loves you for what you are and wants to make you happy is what counts.;)

x2