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What is more important for a healthy relationship – cuddling or sex?
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For many, sex seems immensely important for a healthy relationship. There are other factors that are at least equal to it.
We live in a society that places a high value on sex: if you have good sex, you have a healthy and stable relationship with one another – so the apparent consensus. After all, for quite a few people, irregular sex is an absolute alarm signal that can only point to the imminent end of the relationship.
But how important is sex really? Different studies show at least one health benefit: Sexually active women have a lower risk of heart disease later in life, such as a study shows. Another Investigation comes to the conclusion that sex is good for the immune system.
But when the phase of a relationship, in which many new partners can hardly leave each other, has come to an end and everyday life has set in: Is it really the nail in the coffin of a relationship when sex wears off, as many, egged on by society and the media, fear?
Why sex isn’t as important as cuddling
For some couples it is an integral part of the act and yet for many it seems just a nice accessory in the second row: cuddling. The importance of two bodies gently touching and warming each other is much greater for a healthy and intimate relationship than sex, psychologist Shweta Singh confirms in an interview with “Pulse”: According to this, cuddling is a way for a couple to “enjoy the feeling of emotional security”. She describes one of the greatest benefits of nonsexual intimacy as allowing a person to “take off their protective shield and be more emotionally open.”
Because: Where are we more vulnerable than (almost) naked in bed? What gives us a greater feeling of intimacy than being able to lie skin to skin with our loved one, the wide world outside the window, our own world only between the two of us? “No relationship or marriage can be successful without emotional security and reliability,” explains the psychologist. Purely physical-sexual intimacy would be primarily about physical pleasure, which “of course is just as important in a relationship as the emotional bond”. But not many are aware of the decline in their relationship’s emotional health, Singh said.
Don’t worry if the sex wears off
A lot of emphasis is placed on the mechanical or physical aspects of sexuality, but the quality of attachment is also important, says the researcher Anik Debrot in an interview with “Today”. In another study, she examined what contributes to a person’s well-being during sex. Over 300 men and women were asked about their sex frequency, the frequency of tenderness (cuddling, kissing, hugging) and their general life satisfaction. The first evaluation showed that the people who had more sex were happier. But when the researchers included tender touches in their evaluation, the sex effect on satisfaction was greatly weakened.
What does that mean for the meaning of sex? What’s clear is that most people’s priorities will shift over the course of their lives – which can include sex. But what most people can draw on for a lifetime is affection. And this is not necessarily only shown by the physical act of sex, but by a variety of small and large gestures – which is why cuddling can ultimately have a higher priority for a stable and healthy relationship than sex.
Sources used: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov, pulse.com, today.com, medicalnewstoday.com