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

[Thickums]

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 incurable. 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?'

[LuluBlakey1]

First time I was pregnant with DS1 I developed the ick with DH at about 32 weeks. It was terrible- I couldn't bear him. Everything about him seriously annoyed me . I didn't want him in in the same house never mind room. I moved into a spare room and behaved appallingly- to the point where I decided I was going to ban him from the birth. I don't know how he put up with it and continued to be nice to me throughout. I am embarrassed thinking about how I behaved.
His breathing, clothes, mannerisms, laugh, niceness, friendliness to people, book choices, comments about anything, attempts to make conversation with me, jokes, walk, anything, all drove me mad.

3 days after my maternity leave started and about two days before Christmas I suddenly went back to normal and he became, overnight, DH again. I can only put it down to hit ones and exhaustion. It has never happened again and I have had DD and DS2 since.

[PollyDarton1]

Oh this is a beauty of a thread. The ick is very real and regrettably I get it often.

One guy I had to break up with for multiple reasons, mainly because he referred to his cock as 'Mr Wang' and wore proper briefs (he was 22). He still lives at home with his parents aged 42. I think this is still my most profound ick.

A guy I was seeing referred to my breasts as 'fun jugs' and my vagina sealed shut.

I've not gone on dates with multiple men because they have long fingernails. Just the thought of them trying to do anything intimate with those weapons makes me feel physically sick.

When I was 19 I was hopelessly in love with a guy who was very non committal. I was trying to find some paracetamol at his house whilst he was at work and came across a Polaroid image of him wearing a leather thong with his arse cheeks spread open and I just noped out because I could see literally his cornhole.

I once didn't go on a second date because when the date pulled away from the parking spot he forgot to put his headlights on and we drove 2 mins before he panicked and realised. The way he flapped about it despite it being 1am in the morning and no cars about just gave me the ick. I also broke up with a guy because he was hopeless at driving - it seems to be a big thing for me - it wasn't that he went too fast or took corners badly, he'd literally bunny hop along the road constantly accelerating then breaking before repeating - it made me feel car sick!

The pregnancy ick is so so fucking real. I genuinely thought I would break up with my (now ex) DP during my pregnancy because the way he ate literally sent shivers down my spine. One day we'd ordered a curry and were sitting at the table and I quite honestly had to stand up and leave the table because the sound he made was so disgusting I thought I was going to be sick. Whenever he ate then onwards I had to make a conscious decision to try and rationalise it. He also did this horrible throat clearing thing that I don't miss whatsoever, but he's probably the only person I haven't had a proper ick for!

[marmaladepop]

@butwhateverfor

I know I wasn't being unreasonable. It was first time sex date territory. He was lovely, gorgeous and funny and we'd been dating a few months. He did smell a bit musty sometimes, though, I noticed, but I put it down to his 'outdoorsy' lifestyle.

Once we were undressed, I caught sight of his arse with genuine lumps of poo dried in the hair. Not crumbs, lumps. He told me that he ' didn't really know how to get it off'. I was

Lumps of poo OMG!!!

[Blueberrywitch]

@sheetspread

I suspect this phenomenon has some links to the fact that research has repeatedly demonstrated that men's libidos tend to decline quite gradually over time (rather than in relation to the duration of anything in particular) whereas women's libidos, on average, tend to decline comparatively rapidly over the course of each individual relationship but reset to maximum with a new partner. Not universal ofc but it's a tendency. To generalise massively, men err towards variety and women err towards having a more limited "spread" of men on which they have major sexual focus at any one time (usually one or two), but it's generally temporary - inconveniently for society - and once it's done it's done. Bound to be baby-related reasons for the tendencies of both sexes, I suppose.

Also, a lot of the theories and popular ideas about what women find attractive in men (eg power, money, arrogance/confidence etc), are pretty flawed, and a possible explanation for their persistence when they don't apply in so, so many individual cases is the fact that female attraction to men is based on their (actual or theoretical) status amongst other men. Men's attraction to women, wherever it falls on the scale of superficiality, generally has comparatively very little do with women's status.

Being physically attractive or swaggeringly confident or rich or powerful in the most conventional sense is obviously playing the male status game on easy mode to an extent, but it is also possible for men to be respected and highly regarded by one another when they aren't particularly gorgeous, or aren't showily confident, aren't rich or in a position of power, etc. Charisma, competence and self-awareness are often very workable stand-ins. I have a suspicion that what a lot of these ick-triggers have in common is that they're the sort of thing that, at a very base and animal level, notify the ick-experiencer that the other men of the pack would be a) deeply irritated by this man and b) that they would probably be able to paste him into a mousse for it, with little effort. It may not actually be true in reality, of course, because the world isn't that primitive anymore and our visceral judgments can be just as off base as our more cerebral ones. But I have a feeling it may be something vaguely in this ballpark!

Men definitely do get the ick, FWIW. My friendships groups as an adolescent and very young adult were male-heavy, and many (inevitably rather uncomfortable) experiences of hearing about ick-moments with a woman come to mind. My observation is that theirs are more visual, and more directly linked to the build-up and release of sexual energy and tension though. Although there is some crossover I think - the ick-factor event as signal that this relationship is a-goner and one's attention has been blown elsewhere is definitely unisex.

This is such a great comment! Really sums it up. Reflecting on this comment I see a pattern that things that give me the ick are often things that (maybe even subconsciously) I know if other men knew or observed, would lower the status of the guy on question.

[heartbroken22]

Things that have given me the ick.

Really nasty onion poo breath ~ that makes you think am I talking to your mouth or your anus?

Belly button fluff or whatever it is clothes flulff that's stuck there. I have never had any fluff stuck in my belly button.

I remember going out to eat once and the guy told me not to eat anything as it was all chilli yet was scoffing his face like a dog that had never been fed.

Salty farts

Picking his nose like he was digging for gold then taking whatever he had on his finger to the sink to be washed off. Ewww.


Sneezed so hard that his snot fell on my McFlurry ice cream. I didn't want it. He ate it.

[hellswelshy]

@Fallsballs

An Ex opened his mouth to talk to me one morning and the smell had me flung back on the pillow because it was exactly the same smell as opening a bin in the summer.
Occasionally I think of him when I open the compost bin.

That made me laugh alot!😂

[pastypirate]

Placemarking

[poppy54321]

Had it once. White jeans. Shudder.

[AngelinaFibres]

@LadyH846

@ElizabethMountbatten

Yes. I saw someone once whom I had been in a relationship with years before. We were talking in a bar. The old spark was there and the flame was being fanned back into life as we laughed over the past. He reached for his drink and brought it to his (very kissable) lips. I took it all in, romantically thinking that I wouldn't want to forget this, the moment we got back together. Then, quite abruptly, a bucket of cold water was dumped on anything that was smouldering for me. In the corners of his mouth were thick, white secretions. Like he couldn't keep his spit in his mouth and it was gathering and thickening there. And he'd not even noticed.
Ick.

Ugh. that used to happen to my first boyfriend. I never worked out what it was. So so grim

It happens to old men a lot. I call it old man goop. It turns my stomach. It happens to younger men because of some fungal thing I believe. My husband's elderly cousin has it all the time. I can't look at him when he's talking to me because it makes me a bit sick in my mouth. Definitely a massive ick in a man you might fancy bleurccccch

[AngelinaFibres]

Went out with a young man who had been to a very posh boarding school. I met him when I was a teacher training college. He was 23 ,I was 21. Lying in his bed one morning I was aware of a smell from under the pillow. There was a handkerchief screwed up under there. It stank. It was a 'wanky hanky' apparently and entirely normal for boarding school. 😲put me right off

[Harvestmoon123]

I've got the major ick at the moment after finding out that my partner slept with a particular woman I can't stand when we broke up briefly a few years ago. I only found out about it yesterday. It's not the deed, he was single at the time after all so could smash who he wanted. Its WHO he had bouncing on it 🤢 and the fact I've been there since... Ick so bad I've moved into the spare room because because know...gross

[Jumpers268]

Once, a boyfriend said to me in a wistful/hinty way... 'christmas is just round the corner'. That was it for me.

@Weirdomagnet proper laughed at this. Can just imagine the scene 😂😂😂.

Best thread ever. Just spent 2 hours procrastinating reading all the comments. Too good. The ick is real.

An ex would always say he'd overlaid rather than overslept. Every time it made me cringe. He'd also look at me with puppy dog eyes EVERY TIME I spoke. And he was another who liked to be gently stroked. Shudder.

[adrianmolesmole]

At the risk of sounding boring I think you CAN get over the ick, but it may take some communication!

For instance I used to have a crush on a guy till I noticed he had long fingernails. We were chatting once and I said (rather tactlessly) why've you got long fingernails then, isn't that weird? And he said 'I know, but I play spanish guitar so I keep them longer'. Ick went away after that.

[Ddot]

I dated a really nice bloke many years ago but for some strange reason I hated his smell. Nothing wrong not dirty, not foody, just something bothered the hell out of me. Strange

[Yokey]

This has been my favourite thread of all time. So many laughs!

I've known about the ick for some years now but at 15 I thought there was something wrong with me. Briefly wondered if I must be a lesbian

As an adult, there was one guy who used to say "what are your movements, Yokey?" (to ask me my plans for the day). It was like a fucking catchphrase and I can't explain why it annoyed me so much. He was also far too soppy when he told me he loved me and I felt suffocated by his soft caresses - he'd gently stroke my face, staring intently and adoringly at me with puppy dog eyes in full earnest and whisper "I love you, Yokey", wearing a self-satisfied expression whilst exhaling a little too loudly and slowly, clearly expecting me to swoon in appreciation of his profound feelings. BLEURGH. Get the fuck off me!

I think some posters haven't got it. It's not a criticism of the targets of the ick. It is an involuntary and overwhelming repulsion, completely unwelcome. Nobody wants to feel the ick. The things we've noted are likely not the cause but more of a symptom, and I agree with PPs who've said that it's probably a way of our bodies/subconscious or whatever telling us these men fundamentally aren't right for us. A man can do something that gives you the ick and another man can do the same thing without giving you the ick. I think for me it's about perceiving a man as weak in some way - a bit thick, too feminine, needy or some other trait I can't respect. And it doesn't matter what my common sense says; it's purely visceral.

It's also not about being irritated or disgusted by bad habits either. You can get through all kinds of disgust and irritation with the right man and never get the ick.

[Ddot]

I used to be a body builder. My session ran over and needed to be at work. A very nice man offered to drive me, I normally walked so gratfully accepted.
I got ready ventured outside to be greeted with the sight of this huge bloke standing next to this yellow monstrosity. He had a Cheshire cat smug grim and opened the doors which came up like wings (cant remember the type of sportscar) I got in without saying a word, he asked if I liked his car, great! I replied not enthusiastically.
SILENCE
I suppose he expected me to swoon at his feet but no.
Hate flash cars with a passion, never liked never will.

[Pudmyboy]

Also, out of the noise of the disco when I could hear him properly, he had a really irritating voice...

[Pudmyboy]

I used to see this gorgeous bloke regularly at the Friday night disco (yes it's that long ago!). Eventually we copped off and I invited him back to mine for a cup of tea which was definitely meant as a euphemism. We walked to his car which was...a Robin Reliant. Oh the ick!! He did come back to mine and did get a cup of tea, but that was all....

[Ddot]

I went out with lovely man but he couldn't kiss. I tried everything to change it then one day just told him I like kisses this way. He laughed at me and said thats how children kiss. I'd put up with being swallowed for months and he laughed. Bye bye

[Sarahjlou]

Currently experiencing this with bf...all of a sudden I can’t STAND the sight of him. Things that are annoying me: the way he licks his knife at meals, the way he says “hmm it was pleasant” when I ask him if something was agreeable; the fact he gives me a f*ing lesson about everything (told me how to put a pan on boiling pasta earlier tonight because “the steam rises and the pan loses water” ffs I’m 37 and have been boiling pasta regularly since uni); the way his joggers are baggy at the bum; the way he walks up the garden (yep, really); there’s so much more and I’m not sure what I’m going to do because my period is due but I don’t think that’s it...!
Oh and he does that disgusting thing where they hack up stuff from the back of their throat, every morning and night when he brushes his teeth. And this morning he SNIFFED his dental floss whilst he was flossing and said “fuck that smells disgusting”. HURRRL!

Suffice to say I don’t think we’ll be sleeping together again in a hurry...

[LadyH846]

@ElizabethMountbatten

Yes. I saw someone once whom I had been in a relationship with years before. We were talking in a bar. The old spark was there and the flame was being fanned back into life as we laughed over the past. He reached for his drink and brought it to his (very kissable) lips. I took it all in, romantically thinking that I wouldn't want to forget this, the moment we got back together. Then, quite abruptly, a bucket of cold water was dumped on anything that was smouldering for me. In the corners of his mouth were thick, white secretions. Like he couldn't keep his spit in his mouth and it was gathering and thickening there. And he'd not even noticed.
Ick.

Ugh. that used to happen to my first boyfriend. I never worked out what it was. So so grim

[LadyH846]

@FriedasCarLoad

I think it's just a phase. Stick with the person, talk honestly about the niggles, and appreciate and love the person, and it passes.

I think often we get the ick with men because they're mostly grim. If we really love them we can get past it. If we don't love them, that becomes very clear when the ick rears its head.

[lemartin]

I had the WORST ick and we got through it, although it was rather forced as we lived together in a shared house in London we couldn't exactly have space. In our tiny room he slept on the sofa for weeks, even his breathing and chewing would drive me INSANE I couldn't stand him!
I have NO idea where it came from, just one day everything he did infuriated me.
Weeks passed of this and I was looking at other places to move to and I just realised how much of a bitch I was being. I apologised for being so awful over such minor things and we slowly got closer again.
It's been 5 years since then and we get married next year, no sign of ick! Although his chewing still does my head in 🤣🤣

[Pipsqueakpopsqueak]

Yes, I’ve had this several times! One was a guy I’d been swoony over for months. We finally got together and I stayed over and in the morning I’m bed he did this thing with his mouth to like, divert his morning breath away from my face. The ick hit hard.

I’d never admit it to him but I had it with DH after each baby for a short period - a strong repulsion to the point I actually thought I was going to throw up after sex once.

I do think there’s some chemical psychology at play...

[Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel]

@workofheart what did you do? Life's too short, you deserve better!