During the integrating stage, your and your partner’s personalities seem to become one. This integration is reinforced through sexual activity and the exchange of belongings (items of clothing, music, photos, etc.). When you’ve integrated with a romantic partner, you cultivate attitudes, activities, and interests that join you together as a couple —“our favorite movie” or “our song.” Friends, colleagues, and family members begin to treat you as a couple —for example, always inviting the two of you to parties or dinners. Not surprisingly, many people begin to struggle with the dialectical tension of connectedness versus autonomy at this stage. As a student of mine once told his partner when describing this stage, “I’m not me anymore, I’m us.”