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To think you can't get past 'the ick' im a relationship?

680 replies

Thickums · 02/01/2020 20:09

LIGHT HEARTED Interested in other posters thoughts on 'the ick'.

For those who don't know, the 'ick' is when someone you are dating just starts to irritate you for no apparent reason.
I dont mean normal annoyances, i mean they start to make your skin crawl and their mannerisms just go through you like a knife.
It can just creep up on you without any warning and they can even tick every box and otherwise be a 10/10 partner but unfortunately even them breathing irritates the life out of you. You try to fight it, but ultimately the irritation can turn to anger and make even the best of people become snappy with rage due to 'the ick'.

Ive experienced this once. Lovely bloke, not a bad bone in his body. After about 2 years for some reason still unknown to me i suddenly got 'the ick'. Watching him eat a pot noodle would make my blood boil.. Literally give me the rage. Everything he did irritated the life out of me.
As he was so lovely i tried my hardest to make things work. Until one day i confessed to a friend who told me about 'the ick' and how once it happens it can never be undone. They will irritate you forever. No one knows the cause of the ick.. But its incurableBlush. So i ended it. Felt nothing but relief.

So am i unreasonable to think 'the ick' is a real thing and once it happens the relationship is doomed?

Has anyone else experienced this? What is the reason behind 'the ick'? Why does it usually seem to happen with people who tick all the boxes?

I can't lie, i sometimes read posts on the relationship boards where the OP will say their partner has suddenly said they want out. Whilst everyone else is shouting 'OW' i think to myself maybe they've just got 'the ick?' Blush

OP posts:
amusedbush · 09/01/2020 13:01

I work in a small office with two men and I was telling them about this thread. One said he has never had the ick (but now thinks previous partners may have got it with him, based on sudden break ups Blush). The other said he has definitely had it and broke up with a woman when he couldn't even stand the sound of her voice anymore.

springydaff · 09/01/2020 12:16

This thread is sensitive reading for men I'd imagine. I wouldn't want to read a thread that was full to the brim with guys describing the ick about women. It would make me paranoid. Big time.

Step away Broken.

peaceanddove · 09/01/2020 11:29

Let me guess, are you a bit lonely broken

Lweji · 09/01/2020 11:25

It has been pointed out before that the ick is more likely a symptom that the relationship isn't working, than the cause.

But people can dump anyone for any reason. It's not good for anyone's mental health to force themselves to stay with people they don't want to.

thenightsky · 09/01/2020 10:44

Don't fret broken, he had plenty of friends and certainly wasn't isolated and lonely.

amusedbush · 09/01/2020 09:26

Broken2020

I bet you're a laugh at parties.

ConnorRipley · 09/01/2020 09:23

Unbelievable. You should see what it's like to be isolated and lonely. People wouldn't be quite so disposable to you then.

Yes, we should all force ourselves to continue to have sex with people we no longer find sexually attractive because some people somewhere are lonely.

Good advice!!

(Is your bed pushed against the wall by any chance?)

BitOfFun · 09/01/2020 03:16

Way to miss the point and wreck a thread in Classics

Broken2020 · 09/01/2020 02:46

@thenightsky One ex definitely got dumped due to sudden 'ick'. He was a kind chap who didn't have a nasty bone in his body, which makes me feel really guilty actually. One morning he came downstairs and just sort of did a waddle/penguin walk towards me for a kiss. Aarrrgh!

HmmHmmHmmHmmHmm

Unbelievable. You should see what it's like to be isolated and lonely. People wouldn't be quite so disposable to you then.

Broken2020 · 09/01/2020 02:41

@timetochangenameagain

You're going to end an entire marriage because he does something that you could easily ask him to stop doing???? Shock
Sounds like he's had a lucky escape

Broken2020 · 09/01/2020 02:35

My God.... I never realised people were so disposable these days. Maybe you could ask them not to do these things that annoy you?!?! Just a suggestion......!

I'll make sure I'm on my best behaviour from now on. Hope I don't become obsessively paranoid about my behaviour Hmm

Angliski · 09/01/2020 02:03

One guy i had really had the hots for on and off over the years. Charming, funny, smart, nature loving, super company. I thought we would finally get it together at Glasto - we were due to meet for the Radiohead big gig. When i met him in the dance tent, he was screwed on ketamine. Came staggering up to me, gurning and drooling to tell me that he had 'lost a shoe'. Indeed, he had just one on. That was the end for me. Years of possibility eliminated by the ick.

Second guy - went to give him head early on - smelly willy.

Unrecoverable.

PapayaCoconut · 08/01/2020 23:26

Regarding yogurt... I happen to think that flavoured yogurt is a very unmasculine food. (Plain Greek yogurt is ok.)

An ex used to eat a large bowl of strawberry flavored low fat yogurt with a teaspoon. He told me in a little boy's voice "so it'll last longer". Yuck. You're a grown man. If you want more yogurt, just get more yogurt. No need to "trick yourself" that you're eating more than you are.

I think I find under-eating in men really icky generally. This ex would also "puzzle together" the cheese on an open sandwich so that it covered the bread exactly, with no overlap anywhere. Just put more cheese on, FFS.

Lovely DH eats like a big, manly horse.

Patroclus · 08/01/2020 19:49

My brother says he went off a girlfriend like this after she appeared in Guy and Dolls doing a horrific American accent

Dontsayyouloveme · 08/01/2020 18:30

Just thought of a general ick of mine. When you ask an adult to do something and they reply ‘yes mum’!!! Ffs!! If men say it to me, they automatically lose a lot of appeal.

smilingontheinside · 08/01/2020 16:39

My stbxh gives me the ick which is why he's going to be ex. Things that I'd noticed years ago but ignored have become so huge I can't bear it. He scrapes yoghurt pots for ages after the last possible morsel must have gone, bangs his spoon into the bottom of his cereal bowl for every mouthful, keeps stirring his tea so long that I'm sure he'll go through the bottom of the mug, stamps his shoes on (never just puts them on like a normal person). I can't be around him now without wanting to cause him serious harm. Definately got the ick long time ago. Have definately split from old boyfriends, who were genuinely lovely, but there was just "something" that turned me off them.

Bumpsadaisie · 08/01/2020 13:34

I spent my second year at uni trying to get over being heartbroken by my first love. At the start of my third year I was feeling a bit better and starting to look about me.

I met a graduate student doing a very intellectual subject. When I first met him he was wearing a black roll neck jumper and a tweedy jacket with specs, he looked like he lived on the Left Bank and spent all his time smoking gauloises and reading Sartre.

Went out on a date but oh dear. He turned out to be very pale and skinny, with horrid bottle green briefs on like a little boy would wear. I was able to move past this in the heat of the moment. But then ...

He wouldn't get down to it with me and instead we lay there kind of fondling while I wondered what was going on.

We spent the night lying side by side then in the morning I made us tea and we sat opposite each other at my table. He put his skinny slightly sweaty hands out across the table to take mine and said "oh, wuh-wuh-wuh" with a kind of cootchy cootchy voice.

I got the total ick and had to tell him in the pub the next day that I was just not ready for a relationship at present ...

Luckily soon after that I met a strapping 6ft 2 first year rugby player from a very famous public school. He wasn't very intellectual, he was doing medicine and it was all work hard play hard with them. He used to rock up at mine when I was revising for finals, show me a good time in a vigorously enthusiastic way, leave me a croissant and coffee outside my door sometimes in the morning, and made no other demands.

Eventually he got a girlfriend but it was good while it lasted! Wink

Sagradafamiliar · 08/01/2020 13:28

🤣🤣

sundayfishfinger · 08/01/2020 13:19

In the last year of school there was a boy I really fancied for ages. I was very shy but he seemed to like me back but he was equally shy about it too so we were just resigned to teenage flirting.

This was over 20 years ago so no mobiles for kids our age back then, in our school it wasn't common anyway.

One day he gave me a casettte and said "some boy has just given me this to give to you" and I was taken aback but duly listened to it on my Sony Walkman Grin

It was a computer robot voice (you know how you can type in words and then get the computer to read it out loud?)

It was saying [in creepy robot man voice] "I want to tell you how I feel. I have fallen for you" and all of this other really quite romantic things which lost their romance once read aloud by a bloody computer.

I never forget it ended with "Sundayfishfinger......[pause for dramatic effect] I love you" Confused

Now when he'd given me the tape everyone said he'd told them he made it and another friend had helped him do it but it immediately made me feel sick to my stomach!! I got on so well with him and liked him so much, but I just got the ick!

He kept on waiting for me outside my classes after that and then the things I loved before, like the smell of his Lynx Africa, utterly repulsed me, and I'm ashamed to say I took to dodging away from him in the rush outside class and avoiding him.

I look back now and think, gosh Sunday, you horrible cow, that was quite sweet really what he did. But at the time I just had to get away!!!

Butterfly3005 · 08/01/2020 13:09

Just remembered another one - this was when I was about 19, I was very naive and my standards at that time were very low!......

I was renting my own flat, lived alone and behind me were some woods. One morning my ex rung my buzzer, I wasn't expecting him but of course I went down to see what he wanted.

He asked me for some toilet paper! Puzzled I asked what he needed some for and he confidently and proudly explained that he had just had a number 2 in the woods!!!!

I didn't question, just gave him a roll of tissue and hurried him off. Half hour passed by and he buzzed again - he kindly returned the roll of tissue!!!

What a skank. I had a laugh with friends and dumped him the next day!

managedmis · 08/01/2020 12:42

were getting more adventurous in the bedroom when, as we were getting amorous, he tied my hands to the bed. And then he didn't really seem to know what to do and..... fetched some felt tips and drew a smiley face on my chest

^^

Omfg

managedmis · 08/01/2020 12:37

I responded with " I don't want to see you again, please leave"

^^

My kinda girl!

dellacucina · 08/01/2020 12:31

This spider story will probably give me nightmares Sad

HebeMumsnet · 08/01/2020 11:53

Morning, everyone. We've had several nominations for this thread to be moved to Classics. We're going to shift it over there now so the ick is never lost.

Pinkette06 · 08/01/2020 09:53

@Fallsballs howling!!!! That is awful