Sex is answer for neurotic couples, study finds

BY REBECCA LINDELL, POSTMEDIA NEWS

People with neurotic personalities need more erotic encounters to have happy marriages according to an American study.

Researchers at the University of Tennessee found that the more sex neurotic people had, the more satisfied they were with their marriages.

Neuroticism is a personality trait that leads people to experience regular bouts of anxiety, anger, guilt and depression. The trait is more responsible for bad marital outcomes than any other according to lead researcher and PhD student Michelle Russell.

“They also perceive their relationships more negatively,” she said. “That’s going to affect their satisfaction with their relationship and the quality of their relationship.”

These effects are eliminated by a lot more sex, according to the study published in the current issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science.

“For those people who are neurotic and who do tend to experience that great negative affect, it’s a way for them to feel better about their relationship.”

 

Surprisingly, this wasn’t true for other couples, Russell said, adding that there is often an assumption that more sex would make anyone feel better about their marriage.

“This wasn’t working for just everyone. It was just our couples high in neuroticism.”

There’s also not a magic number of romantic liaisons a neurotic person has to have to be happier in their marriage.

On average, couples reported sexual intercourse about once a week during the first six months of marriage, and about three times a month by the fourth year of marriage.

Russell said she hopes the discovery helps people find more enjoyment and happiness in their relationship.

The research could also help inform therapists, but the study cautions against assuming sex is the only answer for an unhappy marriage. It states: “More neurotic spouses may benefit from learning skills such as distress tolerance, emotion modulation, or meditation. Indeed, meditation techniques are used in mindfulness-based relationship therapies that appear to work to improve relationship satisfaction among some couples.”

The study did not pinpoint the reason why sex boosts marital satisfaction for neurotic people, but Russell said she has some ideas.

“It could be that it acts as a stress reliever for them or it could also be because it improves their moods,” she said. “They tend to experience more anger, more sadness and with sex we think it might improve a mood.”

The researchers studied 72 newly married couples for four years. At the outset of the study, participants did a personality test to determine whether they had a neurotic personality. Then the researchers checked in with the couples twice a year and asked each spouse how often they had sex and how they would rank their marital satisfaction.

Couples were considered satisfied when they agreed that they “have a good marriage” and “My relationship with my partner makes me happy.”