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?'

Once went out with a guy I'd known since school. He was gorgeous and things we're going well.

Went out one night and ended up back at his... not a single hair on his body! His skin was so soft and smooth, like a giant baby..nope! Got a taxi home blaming the drink.

Ick.

Decades of this starting with a boy whose teeth were too nice.
I'd really like to hear if men have any if these extreme reactions. Going to do my own research but imagine if they told us what repulsed them about us!!!

@shodan the cashew nut 🤣 omg

My brother once split up with a girl because he couldn't stand her little toes. He said they were weird.

Yes, once. It just clarified things in my mind that I had known for a long time but didn't want to accept. He wasn't the man for me, I didn't love him, never had and never even fancied him. It was a relationship of convenience for me, he was in love but I never felt the same and I grew to resent him with every passing day. I'm now in a good relationship with someone else.

It sure is a thing. Unfortunately I come down with it in my first marriage.

It is not going through periods where your partner is annoying you, or being turned off when you discover a new partner's habits. It's a visceral reaction. It is totally different and once it happens there is no going back.

I remember my husband touching me on the back once and I felt intense anger and repulsion. It was then that I knew there was no coming back. Our marriage was not in a good place but that took it to another level.

Agree with PPs that it would be horrifying and fascinating in equal measure to see what men say about their ick reactions to us.

A signet ring. Had been seeing him a few weeks, he came over one evening and I became fixated on his signet ring. Instant ick. Made excuses about being 'so tired' and never saw him again.

Silence do you think the 😺 emoji was meant to be pussy? Rather than clit?

Don't know if it makes it better but it makes more sense!

@Jiggles101 I think that's likely, but definitely no improvement 😬😆

I am the queen of Ick

I get it with pretty much everyone I meet. I did stick it out for 18 months with a growing ick but it got too much.

I have had the following icks
Bad breath (this was the 18 month ick)
Fiddling with their chest hair habit
Dirty flooring in their house, which had never seen a mop or a duster
A shiny bald head

It sounds like men don't get these reactions in the same way as it appears it's female hormone driven. Men are also far simple beings, attraction is likely far more black and white lol

@Miniloso

It’s because of the mother’ but he pronounced it like ‘mudder’ (he was posh) ... I got epic ick and I couldn’t DTD after that

Oh god😂😂😂😂!!!! IIIIICCCCCKKKKK

JesusMaryAndJosepheen

right after blowing their beans

Ewwww. Who the fuck says that?!

At you one of those men with the ick-factor?

Please people, stop- I'm meant to be taking my child swimming now. 😂

I can’t explain the ick. I don’t think it’s right to blame it on hormones either - I think it can be pronounced in pregnancy but it goes away.

When you are not pregnant it is just a sudden revulsion that comes over you that will not go away. Many women try to fight it, so it isn’t like we want it to happen but once it is there it will not leave

Re the bald head, I don’t mind bald heads usually but my exes bald head used to make me feel sick. I couldn’t touch it, the idea of the skin on his head was so repulsive. It is a horrible feeling

Because the hormone changed that drive it in pregnancy are temporary, the ones when you aren't are not. It's like primal - your brain rejecting the person for some subconscious reason that you aren't aware

I have only had it once when I was 15 and sea swimming with a bf - he got knocked over by a wave and swallowing sea water made him vomit. I have always felt slightly guilty at the speed at which I dumped him.

During pregnancy I get the ick with myself. I can't stand how I smell, it is all earthy and wheaty although everyone else says they can't smell it. Buying a house when pregnant was a nightmare. I rejected several on the basis of the air freshener they used. Ridiculous.

I did just look it up
Apparently disgust is something women do feel more strongly than men in most areas of life and it’s an evolutionary reaction

“Disgust is a system in the brain that causes us to reject and avoid the things that would have made our ancestors sick,”

This makes sense
Even if you don’t want more or any children you are biologically rejecting a man because you deep down do not find him attractive enough to ‘mate’ with him anymore

I got a smells ick when I was pregnant and it was quite intense. I didn’t get the ick for the father though. That came later on 😂

@happycamper11

I think it is to do with that evolutionary reaction perhaps - historically men took all the risks. They would kill things and women wouldn’t. The women would be the deciders if something was ok to eat. Therefore perhaps they have a much higher threshold of disgust

Hormones are part of differentiate these things in men and women even at a very basic level. They basically control us lol, what turns us off smells, affects moods, thoughts, feelings and attraction it's all chemical. I agree with what you're saying but that's what's behind it.

Yep. Me and my friends have always called it the ‘yuck factor’.

I had it with my ex. One day I adored him, the next day he tried to kiss me and I wanted to punch him away. I didn’t, and I told myself I was being stupid, but by that point everything he did annoyed me.

There has to be a mixture of both - hormones and evolution. Women’s hormones are designed to react to smells more intensely for the purposes of avoiding sickness and illness and keeping their family safe, and like you see here, choosing a suitable mate!

One day I looked at him and he was wearing khaki combats, khaki tshirt and a khaki hoodie. I asked him if he'd done it by accident. No, it was intentional so it all matched.

I was dying his hair for him one day and once all his hair was smoothed down with the dye I realised that actually he didn't have lovely big hair. He had a fucking massive head with normal sized hair on. And the head was "baby shaped".

He somehow found, and purchased, long sleeve tshirts. You know like toddlers wear. So suddenly he was a massive 6'2" toddler with a baby head. Then I found out that his mum bought them for him.

Funnily enough, DH also has a massive head, but it's fine because it's "man shaped" 😂

Crying reading this. I'm pregnant and the smell of my dh, his breath, the way he eats, jaw clicks, farts, time he spends shitting, way he leaves his shoes lying around, tells me he wants a cuddle which really means sex - all of it ick. Happened with my first child too but not the next. I think it passes but there is always a little bit of irritation that remains once you have noticed things....