Why there's no single real answer
Survey research on sex frequency has been conducted for decades, and the honest summary of that whole body of research isn't a tidy number — it's that the range across couples who report being happy in their relationships is enormous. Age, relationship length, health, stress, kids, work schedules, and plain individual variation in libido all move that number around a lot, and any single average gets pulled from a huge spread of very different answers. Treating an average as a target is where most of the anxiety around this question comes from.
The pattern that does show up consistently
One thing that does show up fairly consistently across studies: frequency tends to be highest early in a relationship and gradually settle into a lower, steadier pattern over months and years. That's a normal trajectory, not a sign that something is going wrong — new-relationship energy is a real, well-documented phenomenon, and its fading isn't the same thing as a relationship problem. What actually correlates with relationship satisfaction more reliably than raw frequency is whether both partners are roughly aligned on how often they'd like to have sex, and whether the sex they do have feels good, not just how often it happens.
One real number, from Canada
If you want an actual data point rather than pure abstraction: in Tina Fetner's Sex in Canada survey (2,303 Canadian adults ages 18–90, surveyed in 2018), 56% of married respondents and 35% of unmarried respondents reported having had sex in the past month. That's one country, one survey, one specific way of asking the question — not a target, for all the reasons above.
Frequency wasn't the only thing that differed by relationship status in that survey — married respondents were also somewhat more likely to report having an orgasm at their most recent encounter (78%) than unmarried respondents (66%). More frequency didn't come at the cost of the sex itself, at least by this one measure.
Two more numbers worth sitting with if you're worried your relationship or your age puts you outside "normal": 86% of Canadians in a sexual relationship said they were happy with it, and more than 1 in 3 Canadians age 70+ reported partnered sex in the past month — partnered sex doesn't disappear with age the way it's often assumed to.
Fetner's research also looked at regional differences within Canada, which she generally describes as fairly small compared to the divide between anglophone and francophone Canadians. Where a pattern did show up: Quebec led the country in reported partnered sex, masturbation, and oral sex, with British Columbia reporting the lowest rates on those same measures.
A more recent, separate survey — Leger's January 2025 Canadian Sex Life Survey — asked people in "committed relationships" (a broader category than married specifically) for a fuller frequency breakdown, rather than just a single past-month percentage:
| Sexual frequency, committed relationships | % |
|---|---|
| Daily | 2% |
| A few times a week | 17% |
| About once a week | 15% |
| A few times a month | 14% |
| About once a month | 8% |
| Less than once a month | 13% |
| Never | 6% |
Singles in the same survey reported markedly less: only 15% weekly or more, and 36% no sexual activity at all. And among sexually active people in committed relationships, 80% said they orgasm during sex always or often — consistent with the Fetner data above showing partnered, committed sex correlating with higher orgasm rates, not lower.
See all our verified Canadian sex-research stats →
When it's worth a closer look
A sudden, unwanted drop in frequency — as opposed to the normal gradual settling described above — is worth paying attention to, especially if it's paired with disinterest, pain, or a specific stressor. Our guide to sex drive changes covers common causes worth ruling out, and a doctor or therapist is a reasonable next step if a change feels sudden or is bothering one or both partners rather than gradual and mutual.
Bottom line
Comparing your relationship's frequency to a number from a survey is rarely a useful exercise — the range of "normal" among happy couples is too wide for any single figure to mean much for a specific relationship. Whether you and your partner are both satisfied with your current frequency is the actual question worth answering, and it's one only the two of you can answer, not a statistic.
Frequently asked questions
How often do the average couple have sex?
Survey research on this varies by study, population, and how questions are worded, and averages get skewed by a wide range of individual answers. The honest takeaway from decades of this research isn't a single number — it's that frequency varies enormously between couples who are all equally satisfied with their relationships.
Does sex frequency naturally decline over a relationship?
Research generally shows frequency tends to be higher earlier in a relationship and gradually settles into a lower, more stable pattern over time for most couples — which is a normal trend, not evidence something is wrong with a specific relationship.
What matters more than the number?
Whether both partners are satisfied with the current frequency matters more than how that frequency compares to any average. A mismatch in desired frequency between partners is a more useful thing to address directly than trying to hit a specific number.
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