You’ve gone on a few dates, you’re starting to like each other and then, the question — “So, how many people have you slept with?”
It’s more than just a number, of course — it’s a peek into your sexual beliefs and practices, and, sometimes, a source of shame or pride. 
According to a 2015 study, almost 30 percent of men and women disclosed their sexual histories once they became an exclusive couple; about 22 percent never shared it.
Does it matter? Disclosing it may or may not matter; after all, few of us are truly honest about it. Men tend to skew higher while women tend to skew lower, thanks to the slut factor sexual women face. Hopefully, whomever you end up with not only accepts your number but also embraces it as part of your journey into being the sexual god or goddess that you are. If not, it’s might be a good idea to ditch him or her!
But a new study indicates that the number of your sexual partners and marital bliss may have nothing to do with your partner at all; it may — just this one time — actually be about you.
Is saving yourself worth it?
Most of us are not virgins when we tie the knot. In fact, about 95 percent of us aren’t; the few who are are also are typically religious. That has its own problems.
As one woman writes about saving herself for marriage:
I innocently assumed that all of that work on both our parts to remain chaste would pay off with a hot, passionate sex life after we had finally said “I do.” I assumed this because no one had ever told me differently.
It didn’t work as planned, and although she still would have saved herself for marriage, she worries about the message repeatedly told in the Christian church: “We spend so much time teaching teenagers to avoid intimate interactions, that by the time they’re married they’ve been conditioned to react against intimacy.”
Which is not healthy for a marriage.
Religious men don’t fare much better. According to a recent study by Sarah Diefendorf, men, too, are taught that sex outside of marriage is animalistic and but sex within marriage will be special and sacred. But they struggled after marriage nonetheless because sex still felt dirty — and not in the good way.
Still, the number of partners you have before you marry — whether it’s zero or dozens — figures into your chances of divorce, according to the study by University of Utah sociology professor Nick Wolfinger.
Risk of divorce
There isn’t a “right” or “wrong” number of sexual partners if you want to wed with any hope of having a happily-ever-after, but there are some numbers that are better than others for relatively recent marriers, and having just two partners isn’t it — if you’re a woman — he writes. It’s better to have just one or more — just not too many. Between six and nine ought to keep your marriage intact.
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know how I feel about keeping a marriage intact — it only matters if both partners believe the marriage is worth keeping intact and then actually act that way (yeah, you actually have to follow it up with action). Otherwise, it’s fine to part ways, but if you have young kids at least get your crap together, learn to be good co-parents and always put the kids first.
But, why one sexual partner? Typically, he says, that means the bride has only slept with the man who became her husband and therefore has no other person to compare him with. Same with having zero partners although, as I write above, that may lead to an unhappy sexual life even if you stay married.
Having two partners, hubby-to-be and that other guy — perhaps the “bad boy” who may have rocked her sexual world but was not husband material or who split, or wasn’t “all that” or perhaps didn’t want to have have kids, etc. — is more likely to make her look at her sex life after the $20k wedding and Maui honeymoon are over — when many newlyweds wonder, “WTF have I just done?” — and realize she might have made a mistake. A big one. Bring on the divorce attorneys and the XOJane confessionals.
Better to have slept around a bit.
As Wolfinger writes:
Having two partners may lead to uncertainty, but having a few more apparently leads to greater clarity about the right man to marry. The odds of divorce are lowest with zero or one premarital partners, but otherwise sowing one’s oats seems compatible with having a lasting marriage.
No guarantees
Except, other things than sex factor into choosing the “right man to marry.” If a woman had a deliciously exciting sexual time in her 20s, or a few long-term committed relationships or perhaps a combo, and then had a dearth of partners in her mid- to late-30s, when she may be thinking about having a child, the definition of the “right man to marry” may change, clarity be damned.
Plus “the right man” in marriage changes over time — endearing habits become intolerable, etc. — as does sex with him. Even the most hanging-off-the-chandelier types typically slow down after kids come along. Sometimes other things, game-changers, occur: addiction, illness, menopause, passive-aggressiveness, lack of interest, erectile dysfunction — you name it. Then you find yourself in a sexless marriage and you’re stuck suffering, cheating or divorcing (or, for the few brave souls, opening up a marriage). And, as Esther Perel notes, it’s hard to keep things erotic in a long-term relationship anyway.
Ultimately, Wolfinger writes, “this research brief paints a fairly complicated picture of the association between sex and marital stability that ultimately raises more questions than it answers.”
Right. Because who really knows if how many people we slept with — or confessed to sleeping with (which is not always the same) — is why we decide to split or stay? There’s also no way to know if this holds true with lesbians or bisexual women (the data is for heteros only).
Different expectations
I can understand why having one partner might make someone stay in a marriage. There might be different expectations. Who knows if there’s anything better? Maybe the sex is decent enough. Or maybe you think this is just how sex is. Maybe you’re not particularly sexual. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who has mind-blowing sex with your one and only sexual partner. I’m not religious but, hey, God bless them if that’s so!
I don’t know too many people who had just one partner when they wed; one friend who’s religious turned to porn when his wife lost interest after the babies came and, then, after he’d developed a full-on porn addiction, was shut out sexually for good. No surprise that they divorced. The few women who married as virgins that I interviewed for The New I Do were instrumental in opening up their marriage; they saw that as an alternative to divorce — and it is.
Still, there’s nothing wrong in divorcing, no matter how many partners you may or may not have had before marrying. If your sexual needs aren’t being fulfilled by your spouse, or you’re sexually incompatible in the long-term, or your spouse isn’t interested in learning how to be a better lover or becoming more creative or adventurous and you want more — and maybe even had more once or twice — why wouldn’t you get divorced instead of making yourself, and most likely your spouse, miserable? It’s the same if you’ve never slept with someone before marriage and you’re not even sure better sex exists. Because the best reason to divorce is not because you believe there’s better sex or a better someone “out there” for you; it’s because you’d rather face being alone than stay in your marriage.
And if you do find someone better and marry again, the upside is the number of sexual partners probably won’t matter. You’ll just have other, perhaps bigger issues, than sex.
Interested in re-creating your marriage? Order “The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels” on Amazon, and follow TNID on Twitter and Facebook.
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