Clergy members may practice a kind of selective muteness : in their premarital counseling they often do not stress the possibility of future affairs - but once an affair occurs they vocally urge couples to tough it out .
After controlling for religiosity , length of relationship , number of sexual partners , and education , whether participants had abstained from premarital sex only accounted for less than two percent of the variance in sexual satisfaction after getting married .
As a parent , I intend to encourage my two youngest children before they marry to get premarital counseling or marriage education ; in my view , marriages come under so much strain today that any source of potential support is worthwhile .