For Step 5, "Finding Stress in Each Other," we learn that there is an opposite to Self-esteem, called Stress, which comes form the environment or from each other. It is negative emotion, and takes the form of Hurt or Loss.

We entered the second phase of courtship, Emotional Attraction, in Step 4, where we knew that desire between us was secure, but it became time to go on several dates, and make our vay to deciding whether we will become boyfriend and girlfriend, exclusively. In Step 4, we worked on ourselves in terms of promoting our own happiness, and the capacity to give that away to others, which is a way of defining friendship in the first place.

We also developed a sense of what makes us happy about other people, and estimated whether we "value" the other person, how much we do, and how much we are "valued." Which is to say, how much self-esteem the other person has, and how much self-esteem they cause us and amplify in us.

Now, in Step 5, we must address our emotional capacity as individuals (and a potential couple), for blocking or transforming the "enemy of self-esteem," which is "stress."

Stress is "negative emotional energy," which is something that usually comes at us from other people in two forms:

• A sense of emotional hurt, actions, words and behaviors that do destructive things to our own emotions and welfare, to deplete our two forms of self-esteem, which are well-being and confidence.
• A sense of emotional loss, in which actions, words and behaviors threaten us, take something from us without our permission, whether our resources of time, energy, money, or strength, or drain the corresponding positive emotional energy of self-esteem itself, which is called confidence.

The first order of the day in mastering Emotional Attraction, love and friendship, is of course, to at least not be a DIRECT source of stress toward our partner, or other people that they care about. We have to be on guard for the "gaslighting" effect, codependence, and pathological narcissism within them that may cause us to be confused: that the other person tries to convince us that we are "being stressful" simply by way of not giving the other person something that they want.

What helps us with this is understanding of the Personal Boundary. That if the other person is generally stressed by smaller things in life, they are actually the source of their own stress (not us), through the process seen in those with personal boundary function called "suffering," which is a wasting of one's energy and other resources that drain through "boundary holes."

Instead, we may also recognize that a high character person who "feels stressed by us," may be legitimately so, not out of their own poor boundaries, but by way of our own negativity, pessimism, narcissism or its accompanying selfishness on our part.

When we do the above, we are being a poor friend, and are not being loving at the current time.

You can learn much more about this step in the whole series of deep lessons on it, at the main site articles of "Finding Stress in Each Other."

When either of these get into us, they cause us unhappiness, which is the antithesis of happiness, love, friendship and self-esteem.

If Hurt gets into us, we get Anger as a result. If Loss gets into us, we get Anxiety as a result.

We therefore must learn how to handle the two kinds of stress as a couple, using the Anger Map and Anxiety Map in our Romantic Dynamics model.

In learning the details of these two "maps" of the two, prime negative emotions, we discover that if someone else's anger gets into us through our own boundary, we then feel sad or depressed, angry where we weren't before, and we may find that if their anxiety and fear creeps into us through our own poor boundaries, we feel fearful too, for them or for us, where we weren't before. Now the other person has "stressed us," and we feel stress, which is the opposite emotion from that of love or friendship.

Stress is, of course, something that may come from other people, from strangers, from our workplace, or from our own friends, and it is inevitable. Nonetheless, for a new and growing couple to survive, they will have to discover whether they can team up to stop this drain on their love and friendship, or risk "displacement," which is the blaming of one's stress from the outside world at large, on a partner, and gave error in romance.

Usually, the natural course of a couple making their way through a romance sees them first encounter a frustration, a need or want that one of them has trouble overcoming, and then there is anger to contend with. The dynamics of this is all laid out on the Anger Map.

The second kind of stressful challenge that a couple faces is an outside threat or threatened loss to one or both of them, grief or other forms of anxiety-provoking event. These don't occur that often in everyday life - a large bill in the mail, a lawsuit, a new health problem, job loss, or one or the other of them becoming victim of a crime or other physical or financial threat. For such events, we will make use of the Anxiety Map.

In Romantic Dynamics, we rely to some degree on Shakespeare, the master of human emotions in their rainbow spectrum of variety. These, to add a sense of story to our budding romance, since after all, romance does take a story structure to lend it humanity.

The Anger Map will show us how the two causes of anger are the stress of hurt, coming in at us from the outside, or else a sense on the inside, of inner needs that are going unmet. Once we are angry, we have three options: the passive option of getting sad or depressed with the anger, the active option that is destructive and narcissistic - called, "Aggression" - and the active, constructive, virtuous option called, "Assertiveness."

If a couple can learn assertiveness, they circle back to get their own personal needs met, and each others, resulting in a boost of self-esteem for them both in the feeling of more well-being, or satisfaction and comfort. This is one way in which, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger."  Such a couple can boost their friendship and love, by having methods of dispelling anger and hurt, to go get their needs met, and making for a stronger, more positive emotional connection - love and friendship.

The Anxiety Map will show us how the two causes of anxiety are the stress of loss (or threats), coming in at us from the outside, or else a sense on the inside, of a lack of confidence that we can handle risk, change or loss in life. Once we are anxious or fearful, we have three options: the passive option of getting impulsive or avoidant with the anxiety (sometimes getting into addictions), the active option that is destructive and narcissistic - called, "Masochism," or the "poor me," victimized attitude - and finally, the active, constructive, virtuous option called, "Courage."

If a couple can learn courage, they circle back to greater confidence through facing their fears together, and may learn to "en-courage" each other, resulting in a boost of self-esteem for them both in the feeling of more confidence, or the ability to withstand risk, change or loss.  This is other way in which, "what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger."  Such a couple can boost their friendship and love, by having methods of dispelling anxiety and fear, to go boost each others confidence, and again, making for a stronger, more positive emotional connection - love and friendship.

We learn that since anger and anxiety are the "master negative emotions," virtually every other kind of negative emotion, no matter the name, can be defeated. This is because all negative emotions tend to have a combination of both anger (or sadness), and anxiety in them. Anger and anxiety negate each other, and yet can be addressed and defeated, separately. Less troublesome emotions tend to have a relatively equal amount of anger and anxiety to them ("concern" "boredom" "annoyance" "hesitancy"), while more terrible emotions tend to either be more pure anger or pure anxiety in nature, whatever word we choose to call them ("rage" "terror" "disgust" "appalling" "consuming.")

This means that all a couple needs to do is to ardently study the Anger Map and Anxiety Map. They are then equipped to handle any variety of negative emotions or stresses that come up (and threaten to diminish their love and friendship.)

Step 4 showed us that we are valuable because we are happy and can make others happy. It showed us that we value the other person and want to explore friendship together, to see if it rises toward the level of exclusive dating and then possibly, partnership.

But Step 5 goes one level of friendship higher, that we can put our friendship and love to the test of withstanding stres together.

Step 5 will have us secure that we can handle most problems, emotionally, together, however the amount of effort and practice that takes will greatly differ among couples, based on their personalities.

We will have come a long way to cultivating the four aspects of friendship and love from Aristotle, but the one remaining part of our psychology that we can't alter or practice at is the same thing that marks the difference between average, mature friendships, and "best friendships" or what has been called, "soulmates."

The personality style and temperament. We will need Step 6 to assess the match between us, in the Social Personality System.

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