"I Don't Like You, You Annoy Me"

You may know that we have foster children. If you've been taken from your original family, even if they weren't the greatest, it's never going to be fun. Imagine what it must be like, if you can. Getting taken away from them just because someone says you have to leave is going to hurt, even if they've neglected their parental responsibilities. They were still your parents.

One of our boys was taken away from two mother figures he had become attached to  at a young age. The first his real mum, the second another foster carer. He  used to say/shout the title line of this blog to me quite often for the first 2 or 3 years of being with us. Sometimes he still does. On one occasion he repeated it over and over for an hour. "I don't like you, you annoy me". In the end I picked up my guitar and started singing that line right back at him. It made him laugh, and broke the spell.

Anyway, the line and the verse that had popped out had  potential. And it became a song. A song about something different. About the kind of love/hate relationship that can sometimes materialise when two people are together for a long time. The kind of relationship which looks like a divorce statistic waiting to happen, but somehow doesn't. And somehow, despite the rocky horror, a deep down affection, remains clinging to the rock face, like a limpet at the bottom of a cliff on a stormy shore line.

Somebody once called "I Don't Like You"  a fantastic love song. To my face. I was delighted that the fella got that out of it, because it is a love song. But he was from Glasgow and they see everything differently there.

The song came to mind when I read a really good article by my long lost, but recently and happily found, South African cousin who writes an interesting blog about being a christian and  life in general. Often he writes  directly to other christians, but sometime it's  for everyone. The blog article in question is called Marriage Sucks and suggests that jokingly insulting your partner is not  the best way to build a healthy relationship.

And he's right.  I agree with pretty much everything he said.  I feel challenged by the ideas put forward. Definitely worth a read and a ponder. I like the way Brett takes a knife to a certain sort of cynicism.

 Despite that, I personally think that divorce is the only answer for some couples. And I also have deep admiration for those who manage to cling together like two sinking ships leaning into each other to stay afloat. Because that situation seems quite familiar to me. For some couples, the joking, and not so joking insults,  are part of the "leaning into".  And something special can appear out of the most unpromising wreckage. Which  is kind of like the perspective I sometimes have on my own marriage to Ineke, who I love deeply.


The line "I don't like you, you annoy me" is from my unreleased song "I Don't Like You". It was suggested, unwittingly, by Brett Fish Anderson.


Fee Comes Fourth