About 88 percent of married Americans say they are happy or reasonably content in their marriages. And three-quarters report that their sex lives are reasonably fulfilling. That’s according to a new national poll of 1,001 married Americans commissioned by Parade magazine.
My Take:
CitizenLink is reporting: “Hollywood spins the constant fiction that romance and sex are fulfilling only outside of marriage, but the facts support just the opposite — marriage is the source of relationship fulfillment,” said Jenny Tyree, marriage analyst for Focus on the Family Action. “We were designed for deep, relational intimacy, and it makes sense that the stronger our commitment, the greater capacity for emotional and physical intimacy.”
The respondents also gave positive explanations for why they have stayed married, with 71 percent choosing “deep love” as a reason and 73 percent citing “companionship.”
In researching my book, “His Brain, Her Brain: How divinely designed differences can strengthen your marriage,” I found stunning research that shows:
• Sex Is Better in Marriage!
• Sex Is Better With Religious or Spiritual Couples
• Sex Is Not Better if You Cohabit
Sex Is Better in Marriage!

The movies and sitcoms have it all wrong. They are spreading the urban legend that sex is best when you have plenty of it with plenty of partners. 
But, we’re here to tell you they’ve got it all wrong! It’s an urban legend—a delusional and dangerous myth—a far-fetched fairy tale and fable—a fabrication and fiction at its worst.
One of the best kept secrets in America is that the best sex is not found in the singles bars or on university campuses, not even in the romantic hideaways of ski lodges or beach resorts. 
The best sex is not sex in the city or the sexcapades on Wisteria Lane. 
Nope, the most satisfying sex in America is in the bedrooms of people who are married for life.
Don’t believe it? Check out the data yourself. In a survey published by the University of Chicago, the findings regarding the typical American sex life were rather astounding.
To summarize the overall pattern, American adults fall roughly into three levels of activity in partnered sex: 
• They are either having sex with their partner at least 2 or more times a week, 
• a few times a month, or 
• only a few times a year or not at all. 
Only in the latter and most sexually boring category (no sex or sex only a few times per year) do nonmarried adults rate higher than their married counterparts. 
In other words, married couples have sex far more frequently than single or cohabiting adults.
But, even more surprising is the following fact:
Sex Is Better With Religious or Spiritual Couples

That’s right. This same study found that the more religious a married couple, the more frequent and satisfying their sex. 
Religious people who are married, by far and away have the best sex lives. They have the most frequent sex, the most satisfying sex, the most fun sex and the longest-lived sex lives.
If this type of sex life was available in a pill, it would outsell Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis (the pills used to treat erectile dysfunction in men) combined!
When the researchers looked at which religious denominations had the best sex, they learned that the faithful who are married don’t just get excited in church. Not only was their sex more frequent, but also they were far more likely to report their sex as being extremely satisfying.
Conservative evangelical Protestant women, the survey found, reported the most satisfying sex and the most orgasms: Thirty-two percent said they achieve orgasm every time they make love. Mainline Protestants and Catholics were only five points behind, while those with no religious affiliation were way down—at 22 percent.
Wow! Looks like the Saturday Night Live character of the Church Lady may be more fiction than fact, more absurdity than actuality.
Sex Is Not Better if You Cohabit

The most dangerous myth of all may be the myth that living together before marriage will result in a better marriage. 
As a result, in the past 30 years, the number of couples who live together before marriage has increased 1,000 percent. In fact, cohabitation has become so commonplace in our society that a couple who doesn’t live together before tying the knot is, in many areas, a cultural anomaly. 
So why should a couple defy the societal norm by avoiding cohabitation?
There are many important reasons, which David Gudgel fully discusses in his insightful book Before You Live Together. 
Perhaps the most devastating reason, according to Mr. Gudgel, is this: “Of eight couples that live together before marriage, four of them will split up and they will not marry. Of the four that marry, three of them will divorce.” Double ouch!
Not only does the cohabiting couple have less frequent sex and less satisfying sex, but they are far more likely, if they eventually do get married, to experience a violent, traumatic and failed marriage. 
What does the marriage of a religious man and woman have to offer a sex life that’s so much better than the single life—or even a nonspiritual or nonmonogamous marriage? 
In a book for couples preparing for marriage, The Honeymoon of Your Dreams: A practical guide to planning a romantic honeymoon, which I co-wrote with my friend, obstetrician-gynecologist Susan Crockett, M.D., we list our top 10 reasons that sex is better in a faithful, mutually monogamous marriage: 
10. Bedrooms are more comfortable than the backseat of a car or a borrowed bed.
9. No worries about catching a sexually transmitted infection—ever.
8. Confidence that no matter how you look in the morning, your spouse will still love you and be there in the morning!
7. A few years of your spouse practicing to make you happy pays much bigger dividends than a couple of dates in the sack.
6. No trouble finding someone to sleep with—sex more often and more consistently than your unmarried or nonreligious counterparts—and with someone you trust and who is committed to you and co-committed with you to God.
5. Have an occasional little sexual malfunction? No judgment. Your spouse knows you’re good for another time.
4. Never having to get up and get dressed in yesterday’s clothes.
3. No guilt or sneaking around.
2. No worries about having a pregnancy without a spouse, and having both a mother and a father for your children.
And the number one reason that sex is better in a spiritual marriage:
1. Because God made it that way, and He judged it as good—very, very good.
Great sex, the best sex—within the context of marriage—only works if both partners enter the marriage sexually healthy and maintain sexual health by remaining monogamous (faithful to each other).