Sex Is The Primary Reason That Marriages Fail
We’ve spent almost a quarter century here at ErosBlog writing about sex, and in that time the quality and frequency of marital sex has been a topic often discussed. So it will hardly be novel to read Dr. Richard Wadsworth’s perspective that sex is the primary reason that marriages fail or succeed:
Sex is the primary reason that marriages fail or succeed.
As a psychiatrist and a medical doctor, this is not opinion, this is not an over generalization.
This is fact. Marriages fail because they’re not having good enough sex. And they’re not having good enough sex because the marriage is failing.
This will be one of the very first questions that a good therapist should ask. How often are you having sex? And rate the quality from 1 to 10. And if the frequency is low, and if the quality is low, the next question needs to be why.
That should be the very first thing addressed in most marriages. And you try to resolve that why as quickly as possible. Because at the heart of it, either he is not attracted to her or she is not attracted to him, and marital intimacy is not happening. And that means dopamine is not being released. That means oxytocin is not being released. That means that the brain is not associating their partner with pleasure and joy and acceptance and happiness. And instead, their brain is associating their partner with rejection and hurt. And it will lead to a divorce.
Now, there can be very legitimate reasons why marital intimacy is not happening. He cheated, or he’s looking at porn, or he’s terrible at it, or she treats me like a child, or he’s acting like a child, or I feel like it’s a chore. The reasons can go on and on and on and on. But these reasons have to be addressed so that the two partners can resume having marital intimacy as soon as possible, of the highest quality, and at least three to five times a week.
That’s based on statistics. That is what happily married couples do. And they do it because they’re happily married. And they’re happily married because they do it.
All of the neurotransmitters that are released when a person makes love causes you to like the other person. You will become a good spouse. Generally. There’s always exceptions.
Now, typically, people do not want to have sex unless all four types of love are addressed in the relationship. Number one: friendship. Number two: romance. Number three: familial love. And number four: sexual love. Usually,
people are not having sexual love because one of these other relationships, these types of love, is broken somehow. You need to fix it as quickly as possible so that you can make love as often as possible with the highest quality possible. Sometimes one partner just doesn’t even know how to do it correctly, and so it’s miserable for their partner.All of these things need to be explored. And all of this should be the first conversation that you have with a therapist. Therapist that go in there and they start talking about, well, what happened when you were a child
or this, that and the other. Sure, but that’s not gonna fix the marriage. Sex is going to fix the marriage. Doing it, or figuring out why you’re not doing it, or doing it correctly.I know this is not a popular solution. You can pretend to ignore psychology and biology and physiology and neuroscience. Biochemistry. You can pretend like it’s not important, and you’ll be wrong, and then you’ll get divorced. You can’t ignore biology and win in the end.
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The last time I was on the market for a relationship and using those awful online dating match-up thingys, I put in each profile that for me:
“An active sex life is an integral part of a committed relationship; one based on shared intimacy and trust and communication”
This was remarkably useful in filtering responses and it provided a context for beginning to discuss the subject in early dating without seeming to be pressuring or just plain creepy.
I have experienced relationship counselling. Sex is often the last thing to be addressed, not the first. Even by experienced therapists, sex is seen as the reward that comes after fixing all the problems in the relationship.
I thought then, and even more so then, that this is precisely the wrong way around.
Mistake: “Now, there can be very legitimate reasons why marital infidelity is not happening.”
I’m not sure what it should say, but this doesn’t make sense.
You’re absolutely right Loren — that’s a transcription error, “infidelity” where it should have said “intimacy”. Fixed it now, thanks!
Fuzzy, I don’t know if you’re a TikTok user. Just like the proverbial Hotel California, it can be heaven or it can be hell, depending on what the inscrutable algorithm brings you; and the algorithm hasn’t been the same since it got force-purchased from the Chinese by USA billionaires with their noses pressed firmly into sticky MAGA buttholes. All of which is the long way around the barn to mentioning a bit of “discourse” that has been clogging my algorithm for the last week or ten days, involving a man who waited until the interval between his first and his second date with the woman in question to send her a somewhat clunky voice memo in which he made his sexual aspirations for the relationship (and for date #2) crystal clear. “The discourse” involves a great deal of argument about whether or not he was in fact being creepy or pressuring. Some say he shouldn’t have used a voice memo, some say he shouldn’t have been so clear and direct about his intentions and wishes. Others say it’s a textbook bid for consent and a marvel of open communication. Many people think there’s nothing wrong with what he did in theory but that he epic-flailed the execution. There’s a marvelous diversity of opinion about it that has had TikTokers wrangling for days and days. I don’t really have a position, beyond it being far more forward than anything I could ever do. But I quite like your filtering-profile-language approach. It makes it clear enough that you’re not signing up for a platonic/sexless relationship in the long run, and as you say creates the scaffolding for an in-person conversation when the time is right.
Before entering into my last few relationships, I’ve made my needs, expectations and desires very clear to my partner. They reciprocated, and we agreed and moved forward. The conversations were explicit and detailed and in every case they lied to some extent. In all bar the most recent it has been enough to sour the relationship. The only completely honest relationship in the last 12 years or so was the one purely based on being fuck buddies.
My current love lied on several topics, and it has caused some stress and conversations, but so far those conversations have been good and they have expanded their comfort zone closer to the one they claimed a priori.
In some ways the biggest problem is everyone telling you that if your sexual needs/expectations/kinks/drive differ, you should split up. It’s created an expectation in my partner that I’ll dump them every time, which has lead to more lies and stress before honesty and dialogue clear the air. So far not needed a therapist, but I think we may well benefit based on the very good thoughts in the post.
Makes much more sense now.
But I strongly suspect this isn’t the real issue. I think a lack of sex is generally a symptom of relationship issues rather than the root cause.
The idea that couples should be “having marital intimacy” a specific number of times a week seems kind of proscriptive. A friend of a friend had to organize his life so he could get a mid-day quickie every workday, and other couples are happy with a kink session once a month.
In the plague time I don’t have much libido but I enjoy looking at pretty women and hearing and feeling them get excited. And someone who wants a good licking or ride every second day would not be the right person for me in 2026.