SEXUAL COMPATIBILITY AND MARITAL SATISFACTION AMONG MARRIED COUPLES IN MALAYSIA: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF SEXUAL SATISFACTION

Abstract

The sample consisted of 255 married couples (Mage=31.17; SDage=11.07; 56.5% females; 87.8% Chinese, 7.5% Indian, 3.5% Malays and 1.2% other ethnicities) recruited online through the convenience sampling method. The married couples completed a self-administered online questionnaire that included the ENRICH Marital Satisfaction Scale (EMS; Fowers & Olson, 1993), the Index of Sexual Satisfaction (ISS; Hudson, 1998), and the Hurlbert Index of Sexual Compatibility (HISC; Hurlbert et al., 1993).Significant positive relationships were found between marital satisfaction, sexual compatibility (r= .686, p< .001) and sexual satisfaction (r= .711, p< .001). Meanwhile, the findings of a mediation analysis showed that sexual satisfaction mediated the direct association between sexual compatibility and marital satisfaction. The results suggested that the married couples who were sexually compatible tended to be more satisfied with their sexual relationships which in turn led to greater marital satisfaction for them.As a conclusion, the findings from this research highlighted the importance of the sexual aspects in determining a satisfactory married life among couples in Malaysia. The results also served as a vital input for designing couple counselling interventions among practitioners in health psychology.