Happy sexless couples exist—but they are very rare, according to new psychology research

A new study published in the Journal of Family Psychology finds that most male-female couples who are in satisfying relationships tend to engage in sexual activity close to once per week. Researchers identified four distinct patterns based on how often couples had sex and how satisfied they were with their relationships. The largest group—more than 85% of the sample—reported both high satisfaction and regular sex. Interestingly, a small number of couples were satisfied with their relationships but reported little to no sexual activity.

This research addresses a long-standing question: Is frequent sex a necessary component of a happy relationship? Public opinion often says yes, but personal testimonials—such as those shared in a recent New York Times Magazine article, which inspired the study—highlight exceptions, with couples claiming to be content despite infrequent or no sex.

“It really got me thinking about how a couple’s sex life is tied into the relationship satisfaction,” said study author Matt Johnson, a professor of family science at the University of Alberta.

“We know, on average, couples who have sex more often tend to report being happier in their relationships (at least up to having sex weekly – more frequent sex doesn’t boost satisfaction), but certainly there must be diversity underlying that. So I assembled an outstanding group of collaborators and we decided to look at this question from a couple-centered perspective to try and detect different subgroups of couples based on how often they had sex and how satisfied they were with their relationship.”

The researchers used data from the German Family Panel, a nationally representative longitudinal study. From this dataset, they selected a sample of 2,101 mixed-sex couples, most of whom were young adults between the ages of 20 and 39. Participants had been together for nearly a decade on average, and most were either married or living together. Couples provided information on how frequently they had sex over the past three months and rated their relationship satisfaction on a scale from 0 to 10. Additional measures assessed the quality of their communication, levels of commitment, and how often they experienced conflict.

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Rather than look only at overall trends, the researchers used a statistical approach called latent profile analysis to sort couples into subgroups based on patterns of sexual frequency and relationship satisfaction. This approach allowed them to identify clusters of couples who shared similar experiences, rather than averaging responses across the entire sample.

Four distinct profiles emerged. The first and by far the most common group, making up 86% of the sample, included couples who were both highly satisfied and reported having sex close to once a week. These couples also scored high on measures of commitment and emotional openness, and reported relatively few conflicts.

Johnson told PsyPost: “To me, two big takeaways are 1) regular sexual interaction is a characteristic of highly satisfying relationships for the majority of couples and 2) these highly satisfied couples reported having sex about once a week. Couples may feel pressured to have sex multiple times a week to maintain relationship satisfaction but our results suggest that wasn’t the case in our sample.”

The second group, which included just 3.6% of couples, was the mirror image of the first: both partners were dissatisfied with the relationship and reported infrequent sex, averaging less than two or three times per month. Couples in this group tended to report more conflict, lower commitment, and less willingness to share personal thoughts and feelings with their partner.

The remaining 10% of couples were split into two groups characterized by mismatched satisfaction. One group consisted of couples where the female partner was satisfied and the male partner was highly dissatisfied. The other included couples with a satisfied male partner and a dissatisfied female partner. Interestingly, both of these groups reported a moderate level of sexual activity—more than two or three times per month but less than weekly.

“The most surprising finding dealt with the discrepant satisfaction couples,” Johnson said. “We anticipated finding these profiles because sexual desire often differs between partners, but it tends to be gendered – women have lower desire than men, on average. I thought we’d find couples with discrepant satisfaction where they were having sex either more often than the woman partner wanted (high satisfaction for women, low for men) or far less often than the men wanted (high satisfaction for women, low for men).”

“Rather, we found a moderate amount of sex for these couples (2-3 times per month). The couples were still having sex on a regular basis. It is likely that factors outside a couple’s sex life could be driving the disparities in satisfaction for those couples – an interesting topic for future research.”

When the researchers examined factors associated with each profile, they found that demographic characteristics like age, relationship length, and having young children had little predictive power. However, relationship dynamics appeared to play a much stronger role. High levels of commitment, frequent self-disclosure, and low conflict were strongly associated with membership in the highly satisfied and sexually active group. In contrast, couples with more frequent conflict and lower emotional openness were more likely to be in the less satisfied or mismatched groups.

Although the researchers expected to find a distinct group of “happy sexless couples,” no such profile emerged from the initial analysis. However, a closer look at the data revealed that they did exist—just in very small numbers. About 2.3% of couples reported no sex in the past three months but rated their relationship satisfaction as high. While this shows that it’s possible to have a satisfying relationship without regular sex, it appears to be uncommon, at least among young male-female couples.

“Happy sexless couples were not evident in our analysis, although we were able to manually scour the data and find some couples who fit that bill,” Johnson explained. “It seems as though happy sexless relationships do exist, of course, but they are very rare.”

The researchers urge caution in applying these findings universally. The sample consisted only of male-female couples, mostly in early adulthood and living in Germany. Relationship norms and expectations can vary by culture, age, and sexual orientation. For example, other studies have shown that sexual frequency tends to decline with age, and that sexless but satisfying relationships may be more common in older adults or in countries with different social norms around sexuality.

“These were all mixed-sex male-female couples, so things might look different among same-sex couples,” Johnson noted. “And the data were gathered from German couples. It’s possible results may differ among those in North America or from other regions of the world. In particular, sexlessness has been reported to be quite common in some Asian countries. Could happy sexless couples be more common in Asia?”

Despite these limitations, the study offers new insight into how relationship satisfaction and sexual activity tend to co-occur across different kinds of couples. It supports earlier findings that, on average, frequent sex is linked with greater relationship satisfaction, but adds depth by showing how these patterns play out in subgroups. Most importantly, it highlights that while happy sexless couples do exist, they are rare, and the most common pattern among satisfied couples is sex about once per week.

Future research could explore how these patterns shift over the life course or across different cultural contexts. Studies involving same-sex couples, older adults, or people with varying sexual orientations and gender identities could also offer a more complete understanding of how intimacy and satisfaction are connected in diverse relationships.

“I do think further research with older samples would also be important,” Johnson said. “Perhaps older adult couples might report high satisfaction while not having regular sexual encounters.”

The study, “How Are Sexual Frequency and Relationship Satisfaction Intertwined? A Latent Profile Analysis of Male–Female Couples,” was authored by Matthew D. Johnson, Wenran Li, Emily A. Impett, Justin A. Lavner, Franz J. Neyer, and Amy Muise.