We tested whether financial stress linked financial management behaviors and sexual satisfaction. Basically, we made an educated guess that consistently practicing healthy financial management behaviors would be connected to less financial stress, and that less financial stress would benefit a newly-married couple’s sexual satisfaction.

Our findings partially supported this prediction. Specifically, for both husbands and wives, consistent practice of financial management behaviors was strongly linked to their own reports of less financial stress. Decreased financial stress for wives was connected to both wives and husbands reporting better sex lives. However, husbands’ financial stress was unrelated to their own or their wives’ satisfaction with their sexual relationship.

The finding that wives’ lower financial stress predicted better sexual satisfaction for them and their husbands was somewhat surprising to us. Previous research suggests that men may experience more financial stress than women and that men might find it more difficult to differentiate their identity from how well they provide income. Because of this previous research, we suspected that when men experienced higher financial stress, their financial stress might be more likely to spill over into their sexual relationship. Nevertheless, we found that wives’ financial stress might matter more for a newly-married couple’s sex life than husbands’ financial stress.