It Only Takes This Much Sex to Have a Happy Relationship

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There's no question that having lots of sex is great -- especially if you're currently enjoying lots of sex in your relationship. The more sex, the better, right? Well, not to ruin the mood or anything, but that's sadly not the case according to a new study. Unfortunately. Regrettably. Lamentably.

A new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, suggests that having sex just once a week -- yes, just once in a seven-day period -- is the optimal amount of sexy time for a happy and successful relationship or marriage. In fact, the researchers found that couples doing it every day aren't any happier, which is just crazy talk, really.

“Although more frequent sex is associated with greater happiness, this link was no longer significant at a frequency of more than once a week,” lead researcher, Amy Muise, said in a press release. “Our findings suggest that it’s important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner, but you don’t need to have sex everyday as long as you’re maintaining that connection.”

In a world where common knowledge, self-help books, and (probably) your sex drive all point to more sex, the study is the first to conclude that more banging ultimately offers diminishing returns when it comes to being intimate and happy with your partner. The researchers made these startling discoveries by analyzing data from surveys including more than 30,000 Americans collected over 40 years, and emphasize the conclusions are specific to people in romantic relationships, according to the release.

As for single people, the study found "no association" between the amount of sex they have and their overall well-being, but you can probably make an educated guess on that one.

In the end, the researchers recommend you discuss sexual needs with your parter, but they don't recommend bumping uglies once a week for the sake of meeting the average.

“It’s important to maintain an intimate connection with your partner without putting too much pressure on engaging in sex as frequently as possible,” Muise said in the statement.

Anyway, you know what they say -- it's not the frequency of the voyages, but the motion of the ocean. Or, uh, something like that.

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Tony Merevick is Cities News Editor at Thrillist and thinks people should have as much or as little sex as they want. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @tonymerevick.