Is cohabitation an impediment to marriage?

[Solima]

Someone in our family is living with her fiance and planning to marry. She is resisting a Catholic church ceremony, thinking she and fiance will have a problem with priest because they’ve lived together beforehand. Does this happen anymore? (I thought not!)

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Cohabitation is not an impediment to marriage, but it highly inadvisable to the success of marriages. A priest will not deny your relative a Catholic wedding because of her cohabitation, but he may advise her and her fiance to live separately for a while in preparation for their marriage. If your relative balks at this, you might gently ask her how she and her husband-to-be expect to be able to face the lifelong sacrifices marriage entails if they cannot sacrifice cohabitation and sexual relations for a few months.