Do changing ratings of marital satisfaction after marital education correspondingly change ratings of sexual satisfaction?

Abstract

Several marital education workshops for distressed marriages are offered in America. These workshops primarily address marital relationship issues but do not address sexual problems that may exist in marriages even though it is known that marital satisfaction can be negatively affected by sexual dissatisfaction. Because marital and sexual satisfaction are both important in a marriage, this study examined whether an intensive marital education workshop that helped individuals in distressed marriages improve their levels of marital satisfaction correspondingly improved their levels of sexual satisfaction even though sexual issues were not addressed. There were 188 married individuals enrolled in a three-day intensive marital education workshop for distressed marriages who voluntarily completed a survey measuring marital and sexual satisfaction before the workshop. Of those, 63 also completed a survey 90 days after participating in the workshop. As a control group, 571 married individuals not enrolled in the workshop were recruited online to complete the same initial survey. Of that number, 142 also completed a 90-day later survey. Respondents in both groups were heterosexual married USA citizens at least 21 years of age who were living in America with their spouses. Of those participating in the marital education workshop, 57.1% had significant positive change in both marital and sexual satisfaction in the 90-day later survey, 27.0% had significant negative change in both measures of satisfaction, 7.9% had no significant change in either satisfaction, and 7.9% were not able to be analyzed because of missing data. Those in the control group showed no significant change in the means of either their marital or sexual satisfaction scores during the 90 days.