Sexless Marriage? Here’s How Much Sex You Should Be Having

The weekly minimum

How Much Sex Should You Be Having in Marriage?

A relationship therapist on how much sex you should be having in marriage: what the research says about how often married couples should have sex, the health and happiness costs of a sexless marriage, why sex once a week is a sensible minimum, and why, for many couples, more is often better.

Laura How is a UK relationship therapist specialising in sexless marriage and sexual desire in long-term relationships.

How much sex should you be having? It’s one of the questions I’m asked most, and most of my profession goes out of its way not to answer it. I’m going to answer it.

Married couples are having a lot less sex than they used to. So what? Is that really such a big deal? Well, yes. We’re sexual beings, and marriage is a sexual relationship. So when sex disappears, the consequences for our health, happiness and marriages can be serious.

In this article I’m going to suggest a weekly minimum for married couples to work towards, explain why I recommend it, and why, actually, more is often better.

Before we go on, the advice that follows is aimed only at marriages built on safety, respect and love. If those foundations aren’t there, this advice does not apply.

How Often Do Married Couples Have Sex? The Statistics

In America, a national survey found that 56% of married adults were having sex at least once a week back in 1989. By 2024, that had fallen to just 34%.¹

And in 2024, 44% of married Americans were having sex once a month or less. Nearly one in seven hadn’t had sex at all in the previous year.¹

That’s a lot of marriages quietly drifting into roommate territory. If you want the bigger picture on why it’s happening, I’ve written about the sexless marriage epidemic in more detail.

The cost of sexlessness

What Happens in a Sexless Marriage? The Health Costs

So let’s start by looking at the consequences of sexlessness, because some of the research is quite alarming.

People having sex once a year or less had almost twice the risk of death compared with those having sex weekly.² Men having sex once a month or less had a 45% higher risk of cardiovascular disease.³ And here in England, a study of people over fifty found that those whose sex lives had declined were much more likely to experience worsening health over the next four years.⁴

And then there’s what happens to the marriage itself. We’re constantly told that if a marriage is sexless, the only solution is to work on the emotional connection. This, as I keep saying, is nonsense. (I’ve explained why emotional connection isn’t enough on its own.)

Does a Better Sex Life Lead to a Happier Marriage?

In fact, in a 2006 study, researchers followed 283 long-married couples over eleven years and found something rather interesting. Greater sexual satisfaction predicted improvements in marital happiness. But greater marital happiness didn’t predict improvements in sexual satisfaction.⁵

In other words, a better sex life predicted a happier marriage, not the other way around.

And that’s often what I see in my own work with couples. When the sexual relationship breaks down, the marriage often follows.

Because when sex disappears, it often takes the everyday affection with it. The kissing, hand-holding, laughter and playfulness gradually disappear too. All those lovely things that make you feel like lovers.

And into the vacuum that remains comes conflict, withdrawal and apathy. Couples find themselves living in cold, joyless households, increasingly vulnerable to infidelity and divorce.

And of course, their children feel it too. Fun times for the whole family. (Children really do pick up on it, and there’s good reason to think parental intimacy helps children feel secure.)

The research

How Often Should Married Couples Have Sex? What the Research Says

So, it’s pretty clear that not having enough sex can be bad news for the individual, the marriage, the children growing up in it and, by extension, society as a whole. And for many couples, the solution to a lack of sex is, unsurprisingly… more sex.

So, if you’re thinking, right, I’m in! I want a healthier, more sexually connected marriage, the obvious question is: how much sex should we actually be having? Thankfully, there’s research to help us answer that too.

Across three studies involving more than 30,000 people, the pattern was clear. The more often couples had sex, the happier they tended to be, both personally and in their marriages. Up to about once per week, after which, the average benefits levelled off.⁶

So that’s our baseline. Once a week.

The Health Benefits of Regular Sex in Marriage

The physical health benefits are remarkable too. A study of more than 17,000 people found that those having sex once or twice a week had the lowest rates of cardiovascular disease and death.⁷

And across the wider research, regular, satisfying sex is associated with:

• lower stress
• better sleep
• improved mental health
• greater happiness
• stronger relationships.

You know. Nothing trivial.

The elephant in the room

Why Won’t Therapists Tell You How Much Sex to Have?

So… the research is clear. Regular sex is linked to a lower risk of death, greater happiness and more satisfying marriages.

And yet, despite all this evidence, ask your average therapist how much sex you should be having and you’re likely to get some uncomfortable shifting in chairs and shuffling of papers. Because apparently, there’s no right amount. Just do whatever feels right for you.

So we’re telling couples whose approach to sex has landed them in therapy to carry on doing more of the same, are we?

We don’t approach any other aspect of health like this. The NHS tells us to get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week and to do strength training twice.⁸ Even your watch nags you if you haven’t hit your daily step goal. Nobody finds that particularly controversial. But recommend that married couples have sex once a week, and suddenly you’re literally worse than Hitler.

Which is insane. Sex is thrust in your face everywhere you turn, whether you like it or not. It’s in the adverts, the films, the music. Even the local family gym feels like an OnlyFans subscription nobody signed up for.

We celebrate flagrant sexual expression everywhere, everywhere but in marriage. So, dare to suggest that married couples should actually put some effort into maintaining a meaningful, healthy, monogamous sexual connection, and everyone loses their minds. We have it backwards.

Why Couples Therapists Aren’t Talking About Sex

And I think much of my profession has allowed this cultural machine to bully it into silence. I hear from couples who’ve spent years in therapy, sometimes having seen several therapists, without a single one ever daring to bring up their sex life. Not once.

Couples therapists aren’t talking about sex! Why?

Well, therapists are part of the same upside-down culture as everyone else, of course. Most have very little or no training in sex. And I suspect some aren’t having much sex themselves. Others are simply terrified of triggering people, or even just losing clients.

Sadly, I think therapy has become about validating people’s feelings and choices, rather than challenging them to do the blindingly obvious: which is to introspect, change and grow. Carl Jung must be rolling in his grave.

Sometimes a couple just needs somebody, anybody, to be brave enough to look them in the eye and say:

“If you want to save it, then we need to work out why you’re not having sex and what we’re going to do about it.”

Is Recommending Sex Once a Week Putting Pressure on Couples?

And before anyone starts shouting about pressure and consent and entitlement and patriarchy and God knows what else, can we please use a bit of common sense here? Obviously, nobody should have sex they don’t want. Obviously, nobody has a right to anyone else’s body. (If you want to go deeper on this, I’ve written about sexual responsibility in marriage.)

But when your personal trainer recommends exercise, he isn’t forcing you to do battle ropes at gunpoint, is he?

And your nutritionist isn’t forcing spinach down your throat when all you want is another tub of Ben & Jerry’s, are they?

No… They’re offering expert advice about how to look after your health. Because maybe what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working terribly well? What you do with their advice is up to you.

How Much Sex Should You Have If Life Is Complicated?

And of course, sensible advice takes account of your circumstances. No personal trainer is going to tell an 80-year-old with tendinitis to drop and do twenty push ups. You adapt the exercise to the person.

It’s the same with sex. If you’re dealing with trauma or pain, you need to address those things, take it at your own pace and find what works for you. What you don’t do is give up on your sexual relationship altogether. A meaningful sexual connection can take many forms, at any age and under many circumstances.

So, for the couples I’m talking to here, who love and trust each other and want their marriage to work, yes, I unreservedly recommend working towards having sex at least once a week, in whatever form works for you both.

Sexual Fitness: How to Build Up to Sex Once a Week

Now, I imagine you’ll all have very different reactions to the idea of weekly sex. For some of you, once a week will sound like a challenge, especially if you’ve been out of the saddle for a while. Others will be thinking, once a week? What the hell am I supposed to do for the other six days?

Well, think about the NHS Couch to 5K programme.⁹ If you haven’t exercised for years, you don’t expect to run five k tomorrow. You build up gradually. Sexual fitness is the same. You start where you are, work out what’s getting in the way, and gradually build your confidence, comfort and enjoyment.

There are plenty of resources to help. Look into sensate focus exercises, read Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski¹⁰ (it’s on my book recommendations list), or find yourself a good psychosexual therapist.

You’ll find that as you become more sexually fit, what once felt difficult and awkward starts to feel natural and pleasurable. And of course, the more you enjoy yourself and the more you experience the benefits it brings, the more motivated you become to keep it going.

You might find there’s more humour at home. Less conflict. A bit of flirting, and dare I say it, a mostly harmonious and enjoyable marriage.

Congratulations. You’ve completed your sexual Couch to 5K. Feels good, doesn’t it?

Beyond the baseline

Is Sex Once a Week Enough? Why More Is Often Better

But is that as good as it gets? Well, if you take the research too literally, apparently, it is. The average benefits level off at once a week, they say. So, job done. Nothing more to see here. Sad emoji.

But hang on. What were the researchers actually measuring? Well, in the largest study, people were asked how happy they were. And they had three answers to choose from. Not too happy, pretty happy, or very happy.⁶ That’s it!

So… you could be having pleasant sex once a week and tick very happy. Or you could be having spectacular, adventurous, multi-orgasmic sex four times a week and tick… very happy.

I’m joking, of course. It was great research and I’m not knocking it at all. My point is that there are things in life a questionnaire can’t fully quantify.

What Would More Sex Do for Your Marriage?

So let’s imagine you and your spouse are enjoying weekly sex and decide you’d like to push the envelope a little. To see what more might do for your marriage. Just as an experiment. What would that actually involve?

Well, you’d probably start doing more of the things you did when you first got together, wouldn’t you? Making time for each other, dating, flirting, thinking about each other during the day. Making an effort to keep that sexual energy alive and flowing. (A bit like reigniting the honeymoon spark.)

And there’d be more conversation, wouldn’t there? About what you’d like more of or less of. You’d learn to be more vulnerable with each other, more courageous, and you’d become more comfortable with your bodies and with each other. (If that conversation feels daunting, here’s how to ask for what you want in marriage.)

It would take teamwork. And generosity. And effort. From both of you. The very things that make a marriage healthy in the first place.

And that’s what I want for you. A sexual relationship you’ve created together, one you both care enough to keep investing in, and one that brings an abundance of joy to both your lives.

Start Working on Your Own Sexual Fitness

If you’d like to start working on your own sexual fitness, don’t forget the free Sexual Fitness Check-Up.

If you want the bigger picture, start with my guide to sexless marriage help. If you’d like some support with any of this, you can reach out to me or my team. And if you enjoyed this, you might also like my Q&A answering 30 questions from husbands and wives about sexless marriage.

If you’d like to join others on the same journey, come and join the Good Wife Club or the Good Husband Club.

In the meantime, to yourself and to others, tell the truth.

Laura