Sara Dimerman - How Can I Be Your Lover When I’m Too Busy Being Your Mother?

Sara Dimerman

This project has been a labor of love for me, but I wouldnt have been able to grow it without the help of many other people.

First and foremost, this book wouldnt be what it is without my co-author, J.M. Kearns. In addition to his ability to balance things out, his voice and logic are unparalleled. His research brought a whole new dimension to this book, and his insight and wisdom, along with his exceptional writing skills, raised it to a whole new level. So, thanks, partner. Our relationship has evolved along with the booknot without bumps in the road or conflict along the waybut to a point where we are both very proud of our book.

J.M. and I both feel lucky to have had Linda Pruessen assigned to us as editor by Simon and Schuster. When Linda came on board, she fit right in. She understood our banter, she got our sarcasm, she really seemed to understand what we wanted to say, and so her voice entwined with ours in putting the final touches on the manuscript so that it reads as if it were written by one.

How could I ever begin to thank my mentor, Kevin Hanson, president of Simon and Schuster Canada? At the time that I approached him about this book, the moment was right for him to consider publishing it, and so he connected me with the right people. Thanks, Kevin, for always being such an ardent supporter of me and my writing and for never failing, despite everything else on your plate, to be there for me.

Thanks also to some very special people at Simon and Schuster, especially Alison Clarke, director of sales operations, who was our main liaison. And also to the many others at Simon and Schuster who have, and I know will continue to, promote and support us, including Felicia Quon, Anneliese Grosfeld, Vanessa Chan, Amy Cormier, Rita Silva, David Millar, and Sheila Haidon in the marketing, publicity, and sales departments.

Thanks also to the many clients I have been given the honor of helping over the years. I have always felt it to be a privilege to be invited into your lives and allowed to guide you through difficult times.

Friends and family mean everything to me, and my heartfelt thanks go to all of you too. You all saw me through 2011, which was a turning point for me. It was the year that we wrapped up the writing of this book, but it was also an incredibly difficult year. The same day that I celebrated my fiftieth birthday in September was also the day I said good-bye to my mother, my best friend, as she lay dying from cancer in a hospice. It was the last day that I would see her conscious and the last day that she ever uttered anythingI love you tooto me. She had read parts of this manuscript but was ultimately too weak to read as it took final shape. I always said that she should have been a published author. Her friends and family waited for her correspondence. They hung on her every word. She lived vicariously through my writing and would always be able to think of the right word when it wasnt coming to me. It was only because of the support of J.M. and my family and friends that I found the courage and the strength to complete the writing of this book once she was gone. I knew too that she wouldnt have wanted it any other way.

Even though the epiphany for this book came to me after many sessions of seeing the lover-mother theme emerge in my office, it was floating around in my head long before that. I had seen my mother in the role of mother to my father for their fifty years of marriage. I had seen the role grow stronger and more entrenched as they grew older together. I even found myself morphing into a similar role in my marriage and struggling to find a way out of it.

Aside from the crippling effects of the Mother Syndrome on my parents marriage, I have now, since the loss of my mother, also seen the devastating effects that losing a wife/mother has on a manmy fatherand how he must struggle to grow up now that she is gone.

I have saved the best for last. I would not be who I am without the incredible support of my husband, Joey. In 2011 we celebrated twenty-five years of marriage, and I feel truly blessed to have him as my partner, my lover, and my confidant. Id be lying if I said that I didnt get several of the stories for this book from my own life, but thats okay. I now know, more than ever, how to continue to grow my partnership with Joey so we can always feel like equals.

My love and thanks also to my wonderful children, Talia and Chloe. A year away from graduating with a BDes in graphic design from OCAD University in Toronto, Talia, already a talented and dedicated designer, gave us valuable help in considering ideas for the cover. Chloe, the child we all yearned for, is a bright spark in our lives with her dancing, music, and joie de vivre. I continue to strive to be the best role model I can be because I know that my relationship with their dad will affect who they choose, how their relationships evolve, and perhaps even the ultimate success of those relationships.

A year away from graduating with a BDes in graphic design from OCAD University in Toronto, Talia, already a talented and dedicated designer, gave us valuable help in considering ideas for the cover. Chloe, the child we all yearned for, is a bright spark in our lives with her dancing, music, and joie de vivre.

J.M. Kearns

When Sara Dimerman first told me the idea for this book and invited me on board as her co-writer, it seemed like a slam-dunk kind of project. It turned out to be a bit more demanding than that. Not that the book hasnt been a lot of fun to work on, and not that we havent had many good laughs and stunning perceptions along the way. I want to thank her for sticking with me through thick and thin, for her courage and her persistence. Its been a treat to partake of her imagination, her acuteness, and her knowledge of the facts on the ground in todays marriages. Co-writing is itself like a marriage, and Ive been lucky in my partner.

I thank Kevin Hanson, president of Simon and Schuster Canada, for seeing the merits of this project and running with it, along with Alison Clarke, director of sales operations, who has been a rock and a steady source of positive energy. Their enthusiasm relit the spark of this book. Thanks to everyone at Simon and Schuster, including all those good people mentioned by Sara, who shepherded the book all the way to the shelves and screens where it can now be found.

Our editor, Linda Pruessen, immediately captivated us with her humor and energy, and in the actual editing turned out to be serene, perceptive, and incredibly efficient. She made a complex process seem easy, and because of her the book is better in all sorts of ways.

The three years during which we worked on this book, off and on, have been very tumultuous ones for me, involving many life changes and uprootings. Im not sure I would have made it through them without the steadying influence of this task: it was a refuge I could return to, regardless how my circumstances had changed. That folder of Word documents was waiting patiently, no matter what computer I was using and no matter where my desk had wandered to.

Its been more than interesting writing about marriage while being in oneand thinking back on the marriages Ive known, starting with that of my parents and spreading out to my siblings and many others that Ive observed at close range. The matter of who does what work, and how a persons fate is bound up with the uneasy pairing of homemaking and career, has always been an issue to be reckoned with. Every marriage is a work in progress, and so is marriage the institution. It can easily slip off course, but people can steer it back if they see the way. That became poignantly evident as Sara and I thought through the themes of this book. I think, not so oddly, that Ive learned something about being a better spouse from working on it.