Marriage and Sex in the Age of Ozempic: An Update
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I'm Katrin Benhold, host of The World, a daily newsletter from The New York Times. I spent 20 years reporting from more than a dozen countries, and it occurred to me one day, what kind of newsletter would I like to read? I don't live in the U.S. I want something especially for a global audience. The World is just that. Each weekday morning, we bring you the biggest stories, dispatches from my colleagues on the ground, and a few surprises. Hey, it's Rachel.
This week, we're revisiting some of our favorite shows from the year, listening back and hearing what's happened in the time since then. Today, we return to the story of one married couple's experience with GLP-1 drugs and how the use of weight loss medications like Ozempic can impact how people see themselves and their closest relationships. It's Friday, December 26th. Lisa, I don't think it's an understatement to say that we, in 2025, are in the middle of this, what feels like kind of a weight loss revolution in the United States. And, of course, we're talking about these drugs that everybody's probably heard of, Ozempic, Wegovi, Monjaro. I think most people know somebody who's been transformed by them.
Maybe a lot of people themselves have actually had some experience with them.
Yeah, it's a revolution in how we look. It's a revolution in our health. It's got gigantic potential to help people who have not been able to be helped before. The data show that one in eight Americans has tried one of these drugs. Like, I have a friend who takes the medicine, and he says... You know, if you are able to eat just five French fries and you used to not be able to eat just five French fries, it gives you grounding in the idea that you can control things in your life that you didn't think you could control. So what else can you control? Can you control... the way you relate to your children, the way you talk to your boss. And what really interested me was this question of how the GLP-1 drugs affected a marriage, especially when one partner is on the drugs and the other partner isn't.
How did you go about trying to find the right people to talk to to satisfy that question? Right.
Well, we at The Times have a thing called a call-out where you ask the public a question. And then we get responses to that question. And the question was this. Has a GLP-1 drug like Ozempic and subsequent weight loss changed your relationship? And I was getting all of these responses. And one jumped out at me. He wrote, And I thought, there's a lot between the lines here. And so I called them up, and they agreed to participate in the story as long as I used their middle names. Javier.
Javier.
So he is Javier, and she is Jean.
Jean.
They live in New England in sort of a nice suburb.
What impact do GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic have on relationships?
We celebrated our anniversary a few days ago.
They had been married for 15 years. And I think maybe it's helpful to talk first about what their relationship was like before the drugs. And it goes back to high school.
Junior year is when I met her. So that takes us to 1987.
They both grew up in Sacramento. What did you notice about her? Like, what made you like her?
Her personality. Very outgoing, great smile.
Well, I thought he was cute.
But she was like in a bigger body and excruciatingly self-conscious about that.
So always felt awful, never felt attractive.
And he had a crush on her.
There have been times in my life where Someone was actually flirting with me or trying to come on to me, and I just don't register the signs because I feel so uncomfortable in my own body.
So even though she had a crush on him too, she wouldn't believe it. They were unrequited high school sweethearts. And they each married other people.
What happened was that my first marriage was coming to an end.
My first marriage had just ended. And then our 20-year reunion was coming up that fall.
And I told her that it'd be great to connect and have a cup of coffee. They told me about their first date. The cup of coffee ended up being a dinner and some beers.
And they both told me about the first time that they had sex.
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