Being a calm and happy stepmother does not come naturally and watching ‘Yours Mine and Ours’ over and over won’t help. But, understanding more about how relationships work can make a difference. The theory from which I operate in clinical practice is called Bowen Natural Systems. In Bowen Systems, humans are seen as a part of all living things. Efforts in therapy are directed toward each person learning more effective ways to manage relationships. The idea is not just to be ‘a better person.’ The idea is to learn what it is to be human living in emotional systems.
So what in the heck did that last paragraph mean? And, what does Bowen

Natural Systems have to do with whimpering in a corner after one more lost battle with your stepchild?
Not everyone is ready for thinking in terms of Natural Systems. Thinking in terms of Natural Systems means letting go of labels and letting go of old ways of thinking about blame. Natural Systems provides a way to ‘think’ about behavior and behavior change and empowers our ability to function in relationships. The most basic unit of an emotional system is the Triangle.

A Triangle is any three people in an emotional field. In a Triangle, two people are always closer and one is in the distant position. Being a stepmother is not an easy way to function because in the Triangle of father-child-stepmother, the stepmother is in the distant position. This is a natural consequence, like gravity. Being on the outside is natural, but it doesn’t have to be the end of the world or turn you, the stepmom into a crazy person loaded down with negative feelings.

In a Triangle, the person in the distant position will be the most uncomfortable one, and the person in the distant position will be the one to attempt to change in the relationships. When the new marriage begins, we, stepmothers usually attempt to get more comfortable by working on our relationships with the children.

This is a tough assignment, since the child has a biological mother who has been marginalized through divorce or death. The child will be more anxious to not jostle his relationship with his biological mother than he or she will be anxious to get close to you, the new one on the block. This is true, and sometimes even more evident, when the biological parent is dead, and the child is anxious to preserve memories, often idealized memories, with which the present cannot compete.

The child will also be more anxious about ‘losing’ more of his or her father to you, than the child will be anxious to be closer with you. Regardless of the situation, the new stepmom is a competitor for Dad’s attention and since your husband is ‘in love’ with you in a way he wasn’t with the biological mother, the child feels an even higher potential for loss.

The purpose of this introduction to understanding the system of which the
stepmother is a part is merely to start your brain wheels turning.

Recognizing your ‘natural’ outsider position as a stepmother says nothing of what the relationship can become. The idea is to relax and work on your new family in ways that work and avoid the ‘natural’ pitfalls. In some new families, the triangle ‘rules’ become lax over time and no one feels like an outsider, but this takes conscious work. In other new families, the emotional closeness and distance features become more and more distinct. The outside position can become so painful that your efforts to find a place in the family begin to ‘define’ what goes on. In which case, no one is comfortable.