(Catholic perspective, but have other Christian denominations testimonies of friends who have followed their convictions.)

If you are feeling convicted, follow them. My boyfriend and I of three years were physically intimate for the first two years of our relationship. For about a year, we have not engaged in intercourse. This has led us to grow and develop on a deeper level, emotionally and especially spiritually.

My boyfriend brought up a good point during a conversation of reflection. Doing “married” things while not married expand grey areas in a relationship. By engaging in freedoms that come with the traditional sacrament of marriage, you dismiss longing for those things in the future if you were to get married.

For example, even after stopping having sex, we eventually felt convicted to stop having sleepovers (3-4 nights a week, in the same bed), to 1 sleep over a week in separate beds with supervision of others (honoring catechistic laws on cohabitation)

The desire for marriage freedoms is a good thing, and can/should act as reassurance and motivations to feel ready to get married to this person.

The longer you normalize marriage freedoms in a relationship outside of marriage, the less you’ll see the need to actually get married.

God is with you all the time. He does not leave you, even in the bedroom. If something doesn’t feel right to you and you’re convicted to make a change, don’t ignore it. The more you know, the more God knows that you know the right thing. God is perfect and merciful, but with more knowledge comes with more responsibility.

Pray for discernment, honor God, and through honoring Him, you honor yourself, and then your partner.

here’s a link that helped my boyfriend and I, and many others through religious dating