Placing a child's or partner's needs above my own: Impacts on a couple's sexual relationship

Abstract

Parent couples often struggle to maintain satisfying sex lives perhaps because partners have different priorities to balance including the self, their relationship with each other, and their relationships with their children. Given that parents are increasingly involved in supporting adult children, it is important to examine how prioritization of other's needs over one's own shapes a couple's sexual relationship. In a sample of 179 parent couples with university student children living at home, we examined whether prioritizing one's partner's (i.e., partner‐centrism) and/or their child's (i.e., child‐centrism) needs above one's own were associated with couples' sexual relationship outcomes (sexual desire, satisfaction, and frequency). The results showed that higher partner‐centrism was positively associated with sexual satisfaction for both men and women. Having a partner who prioritized them and not their child was beneficial for men's sexual relationship. In contrast, it was important for highly child‐centric women that their partner was also child‐centric. The findings highlight the importance of examining the ways in which parents prioritize their own and other family members' needs when working with couples. It may be especially beneficial for men's outcomes when they feel prioritized and for women when they feel that their partner shares their goal to prioritize children.