Sure. As I said, I could see someone referring to their husband or wife as a 'lover' in casual conversation, but I'm speaking in terms of formality. Like, if you were to introduce me to your husband, you wouldn't introduce him as your live-in lover or lover, I hope. That'd be weird, and a little confusing for me. Different people put different values on certain words, and I find 'lover' is too vague for formality. It'd make me think he's your boyfriend, or your sex friend... or you're both swingers... or something. I DEFINITELY wouldn't conclude that you were married; of that, I'm certain.
Perfectly acceptable
after a formal introduction; totally weird
as a formal introduction.
Which begs the question: how would someone in a cohabiting relationship that have no intention of getting married address their significant other in a formal introduction? Spouse? Husband or wife, even though they're not married? Partner? Hmm...
...
Oh, I'm losing focus.
Back to the point, no. I might have minced my words because that's not how I previously saw the tag, and for completely non-romantic situations, I'd use 'roommates' or 'housemates'. In the event that these roommates saw each other in a different light and became lovers, then I'd put a 'friends to lovers' tag and keep the 'roommates' tag, because that's how they were initially introduced.
Using my assumed false knowledge, I would've still distinguished the tags differently. With a 'roommates' tag, I'd assume it to mean that the living arrangement was something the two people agreed on, yet have no romantic relationship, whereas a 'cohabitation' tag was something like the beginning of
Kimi no Iru Machi. More precisely, I thought of the cohabitation tag as something like
"living with your love interest". "Live-in lover" would naturally mean what it means.
The tags seem to reflect that too, with the most damning piece of evidence I was able to find being this:
Cohabiting Lover. It immediately caught my eye when browsing through the tag, you know, since the title's so redundant. Good thing it did, because its description is almost exactly what I'm trying to explain.
And of course I'm not stalking you, but please be aware that when you write things on the internet, people will read it. Even if you've never provoked a response from me till now, yeah, I'm creepily lurking in the background reading your posts whilst feverishly ringing my hands and giggling madly at all the time I'm wasting.
It's a sad state of affairs, I'm afraid.