One Line of Sexual Decline? Growth Mixture Modeling for Midlife Sexual Satisfaction.

Most research has shown that sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships tends to decline over time. Studies showing the average trajectory, however, are limited by only assessing one slope. With longitudinal data from the Flourishing Families Project, Marital Instability Dataset, and the Iowa Yo...

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Published in:Archives of Sexual Behavior Vol. 50; no. 6; pp. 2641 - 2666
Main Authors: Leonhardt, Nathan D., Willoughby, Brian J., Dyer, W. Justin, Neppl, Tricia K., Lorenz, Frederick O.
Format: Article
Published: Springer Nature Aug2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Aug2021
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        10.1007/s10508-021-01978-x
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        atl: One Line of Sexual Decline? Growth Mixture Modeling for Midlife Sexual Satisfaction.
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          Leonhardt, Nathan D.
          Willoughby, Brian J.
          Dyer, W. Justin
          Neppl, Tricia K.
          Lorenz, Frederick O.
        affil:
          Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, 100 St. George Street, 4th Floor, Sidney Smith Hall, M5S 3G3, Toronto, ON, Canada
          School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
          Department of Religion, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
          Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
          Department of Statistics, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA
      su:
        Sexual excitement
        Marriage
        Human sexuality
        Husbands
        Wives
      sug:
        subj:
          Sexual excitement
          Marriage
          Human sexuality
          Husbands
          Wives
      keyword:
        Relationship satisfaction
        Relationships
        Sexual satisfaction
        Sexuality
        Relationship satisfaction
        Relationships
        Sexual satisfaction
        Sexuality
      ab: Most research has shown that sexual satisfaction in long-term relationships tends to decline over time. Studies showing the average trajectory, however, are limited by only assessing one slope. With longitudinal data from the Flourishing Families Project, Marital Instability Dataset, and the Iowa Youth and Families Project, we utilized growth mixture modeling to assess what trajectories of sexual satisfaction exist in midlife marriages. In the three samples (one individual, two dyadic), we found clear evidence for heterogeneous sexual satisfaction trajectories, for both wives and husbands. Through the datasets, we found some trajectories did decline over time. We also found stably high, stably medium, stably low, and some trajectories that showed an increase in sexual satisfaction over time. Overall, trajectories were similar for wives and husbands, though some classes had one partner with variability while the other was stable, some classes had trajectories with wives having higher sexual satisfaction than husbands, and some classes had trajectories with husbands having higher sexual satisfaction than wives. Demographic variables were not strong distinguishers of these differing trajectories. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability trajectories (based on sexual satisfaction classes) generally had similar patterns to sexual satisfaction trajectories, with a few exceptions. Both marital satisfaction and perceived marital stability were less likely to significantly change over time, have discrepancies between wives and husbands, and have either low marital satisfaction or high perceived marital instability, even if sexual satisfaction was low. These data can help couples recognize various possibilities for sexual satisfaction over time, perhaps helping them to avoid cultural myths of inevitably declining sexual satisfaction.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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