Sex before marriage as a couple who is in the process of becoming catholic

Hi! First of all please don’t judge me harshly, I am in the midst of thinking on this subject and evaluating if I am doing it wrong or right and shaming me is definitely not going to help, I appreciate respectful comments giving me insights and advice but no shaming. Anyways, me and my boyfriend have been together for 5 years we’re both studying in grad school and are in a very very comitted relationship, he is the most amazing loving responsible and respectful person and we truly love each other and have plans for marriage and kids as soon as we are economically stable (as in having long term jobs and being able to rent a house together). We have been raised by non religious families and religion has never really been a part of our life up until the last two years where we really started digging deep into the idea of God, christianity, the catholic church… I have started OCIA and he’s about to start next month because he’s had a very hectic schedule up until now and we both go to church regularly and are active in learning apologetics, theology and practicing prayer, there are things that we don’t yet agree on with the church or feel like the church should change but we consider the opinion of the church and agree with it on most of all essential dogma. The thing is, throughout all this years we have been having sex because it is the normal thing in our culture (spanish-european) to have sex in long term committed relationships like ours and I have also been on birth control and now I am thinking wether that should change. But the truth is, I don’t feel like us having relations is drawing us further from God because we are currently and actively trying to get close to God and we experience sex as a beautiful unitive thing, not as something to be ashamed of or dirty if outside of marriage, sex is a part of our relationship and we view it as a gift of giving each other to one another. But I also know what the church says about it, so I am very torn. I also know that he would absolutely respect my decision if we did stop having sex because he loves me above all and has always respected my boundaries but I don’t know how to tell him and if suddenly eliminating such a beautiful part of our relationship will damage it, even if we both agree with not having sex in the end. Any advice?