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If you’re married and move in with a new partner in Colorado, you’re technically committing the crime of bigamy.
An archaic state law makes it illegal for a married person to “cohabit with another person” while still married, even if the marriage has effectively ended in every way but paperwork. However, that statute is now in a lawmaker’s sights as the new legislative session gets underway.
The General Assembly convened on January 14, with over 100 bills already filed. Among those is Senate Bill 26-013, a narrowly tailored proposal that would strip cohabitation out of Colorado’s bigamy statute.
State Senator Nick Hinrichsen, a Pueblo Democrat, says he introduced the bill as a modernization effort. Colorado would still prohibit people from being legally married to more than one person at a time, but SB 013 would remove language that criminalizes a married person simply for living with another adult.
“It’s not the government’s business who you’re living with or sleeping with,” Hinrichsen says, calling the cohabitation clause “really, really outdated.”
According to Hinrichsen, the core purpose of bigamy law remains valid. “Having multiple marriages at the same time has been used in the past for insurance fraud and tax fraud,” he says. “We want to continue to prohibit that. But criminalizing cohabitation goes way beyond that.”
Hinrichsen says the issue has surfaced repeatedly in family court, where the technicality can be used as leverage in divorce proceedings. Couples separate, move on with their lives, but sometimes delay formal divorce because of cost or logistics — but when a divorce is finally pursued, the fact that one partner has moved in with someone else can be weaponized, he notes.
“People move on,” Hinrichsen says. “One partner finds another partner, and they move in. Then they go to actually finalize the divorce later, and old feelings come back. That gets used against them.”
Hinrichsen says the law has also caused harm outside of divorce court, particularly for survivors of domestic violence and people in polyamorous households. He says he’s heard from survivors of the 2022 Club Q shooting who were hesitant to seek victim compensation or interact with law enforcement because they feared scrutiny of their private lives.
“They believed they were entitled to benefits, but chose not to pursue them,” Hinrichsen explains. “They were worried about intrusion into their privacy and about unintentionally violating the text of the law just by describing their relationships.”
That concern is familiar to Z Williams, an organizer and advocate with Denver’s Bread and Roses Legal Center. The trans-led legal nonprofit works with queer and trans Coloradans navigating the legal system, including survivors of violence and people whose families don’t fit a traditional mold.
The organization first became aware of the problem with the cohabitation language in the bigamy statute while working with ethically non-monogamous and polyamorous families who were impacted by tragedy, Williams says; accessing victim compensation usually requires communication with law enforcement or prosecutors.
“In a household with three people who lost wages or needed mental-health care, you essentially have to admit to law enforcement that you are breaking the law,” Williams says. “Anytime you walk up and say, ‘Hi, I’m breaking the law,’ that puts you at risk of prosecution. Even the threat of that is enough to stop people from seeking help.”
According to Williams, the statute also creates fear beyond criminal charges as families worry about child welfare investigations, custody disputes or unnecessary scrutiny once law enforcement becomes involved.
Survivors of intimate partner violence face a separate set of risks. Williams says abusive partners sometimes use the threat of divorce as a means of control, especially when the survivor fears repeated court contact or retaliation.
“Divorces are expensive, and people are struggling financially right now,” Williams notes. “Some couples may make the choice to separate but not have the ability to legally complete the process. That should not put someone at risk of criminal charges.”
Williams emphasizes that SB 013 does not legalize multiple marriages. Instead, it narrows the statute to reflect how most of us understand bigamy.
“This bill is making bigamy law in Colorado what most people probably think it is,” Williams says. “You cannot marry or be in a civil union with more than one person. But there are a lot of reasons people might be cohabitating, especially in modern times, and none of those should be criminalized.”
Actual bigamy prosecutions are rare in Colorado, but they do occur. Last year, a Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent was cited after investigators found out he was legally married to two women at the same time. That would remain illegal under SB 013.
That distinction is the point, the bill’s supporters say. Fraudulent marriages are still prohibited, but private living arrangements would no longer be grounds for criminal charges.
“Falsified legal documents to obtain benefits you don’t qualify for are bad,” Hinrichsen says. “Government imposition of morality and intrusion into the privacy of your personal life is also bad.”
The measure is awaiting its first hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hinrichsen says he hopes colleagues see it as a straightforward update rather than a culture war issue.
