Empathic accuracy for a partner's negative affect is associated with couples' daily sexual well-being.

Abstract

Sexual well-being contributes to satisfying relationships, yet commonly declines in long-term couples. According to theory, effective coregulation of emotions promotes couples' sexual well-being. Accurately perceiving a partner's affect (i.e., mood, emotions)-empathic accuracy-may be fundamental to coregulating emotions and promotes intimacy; thus, higher empathic accuracy might promote couples' sexual well-being. In the first test of this hypothesis, an inclusive sample of 141 cohabiting couples completed daily online measures of negative affect, perceived partner negative affect, sexual satisfaction, sexual desire, and sexual distress for 28 days. We tested how daily variations in congruence/incongruence between perceived partner negative affect and a partner's (the "target's") reported negative affect were associated with each partner's sexual well-being, controlling for relationship satisfaction, using multilevel Dyadic Response Surface Analysis. For targets, sexual satisfaction was lower on days when partners were more inaccurate at perceiving their negative affect, and desire was not associated with inaccuracy but was higher on days when partners were accurate at perceiving extreme (low or high) negative affect versus midrange levels. When perceiving partners were more inaccurate, their own sexual distress was higher and, unexpectedly, their desire was higher. Finally, when perceivers overestimated (vs. underestimated) negative affect, they reported higher sexual distress and higher desire. Couples' sexual well-being may benefit from noticing daily changes in one another's negative affect. However, there may be drawbacks for perceiving partners' desire. Future work testing mechanisms such as responsiveness and intimacy would contribute to developing evidence-based approaches to support couples' emotional coregulation and sexual well-being. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).