What Happy Couples do to have an Amazing Sex Life

What constitutes “normal” behavior among happy couples?  What makes their sex great? What makes them satisfied and content and feeling loved? Let’s look at the research and then let’s look at your relationship.

Why do Couples Have a Great Sex Life?

Around the world nearly 100,000 couples reported on the success of their relationships. Those who reported that they have a good sex life attribute it to two things:

  1. They are good friends
  2. They make sex an important part of their relationship.

Wellness entrepreneur Chrisanna Northrup teamed with two of America’s top sociologists, Yale Ph.D.  Pepper Schwartz and Harvard Ph.D. James Witte, to design a unique interactive survey that drew feedback from 24 countries around the world.  Their book, The Normal Bar is the definitive resource for knowing the relationship-tested ways couples achieve satisfaction and contentment in areas such as communication, affection, finances and, of course, sex.

Couples who have a good sex life are doing the same set of things and those who do not have a good sex life are not doing these same things.

John Gottman, Ph.D., world-renowned for his work on relationship stability and divorce prediction, was recently voted one of the Top 10 Most Influential Therapists of the past quarter-century. The author of 190 published academic articles, author or co-author of 40 books, and researcher studying over 3000 couples over four decades, has identified 13 things all couples do who have an amazing sex life.

13 Things Happy Couples do to have a Great Sex Life

  1. They say “I love you” every day and mean it
  2. They kiss one another passionately for no reason
  3. They give surprise romantic gifts
  4. They know what turns their partners on and off erotically
  5. They are physically affectionate, even in public
  6. They keep playing and having fun together
  7. They cuddle
  8. They make sex a priority, not the last item of a long to-do list
  9. They stay good friends
  10. They can talk comfortably about their sex life
  11. They have weekly dates
  12. They take romantic vacations
  13. They are mindful about turning toward

In short, they turn toward one another with love and affection to connect emotionally and physically.

Why do Couples Have a Bad Sex Life?

The Sloan Center at UCLA studied 30 dual-career heterosexual couples in Los Angeles who had young children. The researchers were like anthropologists – observing, tape-recording, and interviewing these couples. They discovered that most of these young couples:

  1. Spend very little time together during a typical week
  2. Become job-centered (him) and child-centered (her)
  3. Talk mostly about their huge to-do lists
  4. Seem to make everything else a priority other than their relationship
  5. Drift apart and lead parallel lives
  6. Are unintentional about turning toward and connecting with one another

Other researchers find couples spend only about 25 – 35 minutes together every week in conversation, and most of their talk is about errands and tasks that they had to get done. These behaviors do not lead to a good sex life or a happy relationship.

Take a look at your relationship and analyze your behaviors on these two lists. Where are you spending your time as a couple? If you want some assistance in doing the behaviors of happy couples, email or call me at 702-242-4222.

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