Researchers have suggested that regular churchgoers, married people or those who enjoy harmonious social ties are most satisfied with their love life.
This also goes for people who are currently in love or who experience the commitment and sexual desire of their partners, says Felix Neto and Maria da Conceicao Pinto of the Universidade do Porto in Portugal.
To investigate the factors that influence this across various age groups, 1,284 adult Portuguese women and men ranging between 18 and 90 years old were asked to evaluate and weigh specific facets of their own love lives by using the Satisfaction With Love Life Scale.
Neto and Pinto found that a combination of factors such as age, religious involvement, marital status and love style (e.g. manipulative or playful), influence a person's love satisfaction.
Young adults (18 to 30 years old) enjoy similar overall levels of love satisfaction as do adults (31 to 59 years old) and older adults (60 to 90 years old). In comparing adults in the older age groups, those beyond 60 years of age were found to be less satisfied with their love lives than those between 31 and 59 years old, partly because it is of less importance to them. While education does not impact a person's love life satisfaction, religious involvement does.
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People who enjoy higher levels of well-being and have harmonious social relationships also tend to be more content with their love lives. The same is true for people who are currently in love, in contrast to those who are not in a romantic relationship. Married and cohabiting respondents (and especially those who experienced the commitment and sexual desire of their partners) of all ages enjoy higher love satisfaction than divorced people.
Adult men with a Ludus style (game-playing, manipulative love that keeps partner uncertain about relationship) or Mania style (possessive, jealous) rate their love lives as more fulfilled.
The study has been published in Springer's journal Applied Research in Quality of Life.
