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?'

I had it with an ex years ago.
We were at the cinema watching a Harry Potter film (we were in our 30’s at the time) and I looked sideways at him to say something and had a horrible and sudden realisation that in profile he looked exactly like Voldemort. I felt sick and suddenly just felt revolted. I kept staring at him and feeling worse, proper visceral yuck. I had to make up a story when the film finished about why he couldn’t come back to my house to stay over as planned. I told him an elaborate story about my ex having the kids and one of them being ill and couldn’t get away from him fast enough. He was nice about it, which almost made it worse. Dumped him shortly after.
Oh, and he also had a lady-bottom. Which was off putting in a strapping 6 foot 3 bloke.

@Menora whatever it is it's quite fascinating and I'm also pleased to learn, quite common. I always thought it was me.

I always realised an exp looked familiar naked but the sudden realisation it was because he looked like the grinch when he was looking for something to wear, was the start of the slippery slope. He was actually really fit and athletic but a natural change with age for someone who was very muscular in youth.

"because you deep down do not find him attractive enough to ‘mate’ with him anymore"

Could this be due to over familiarity like siblings, so when DH becomes too much like family and there is no longer any mystery... I think I have this problem now with him

may trigger a bit

I had this with a former girlfriend who insisted on loudly putting on a cod Scottish accent while drunk (because she was born in Scotland and wanted to assert her right to use it) Her normal voice was neutral middle class English and her Scots sounded utterly fake and ridiculous; she had no ear for the nuances of language and you could see everyone around her cringe with embarrassment when she started up.

Same woman would also insist on farting in the middle of sex. Ok, when you’ve got to go you’ve got to go, but she’d make this big song and dance about it like she was proving how strong and independent she was by stinking the bed up. She would smirk about the time she terminated a pregnancy (not with me) but refused to eat any food with E471 (animal rennet?) in it for “ethical” reasons.

All said she was (and probably still is) a fairly sad and toxic person who seemed to have very little self esteem or sense of identity so she’d repeatedly over compensate by being an arsehole.

I think I massively have the ick with GinDaddy for using the words lived experience how is that different from just experience? It makes me shudder.

Yeah, I've had it in 2 relationships. My 2 exdp were wonderful, loving, selfless but I just couldn't be around then any longer without cringing! I ended it both times, felt instant relief, no tears.

Oh I am so relieved to see it's common!

Years ago, when I was around 20, met this stunning guy, had a couple of dates, all going great. Out to dinner one night in his city and I was to stay over at his as I lived in the next city miles away. He got a bit pissed and started banging on misty eyed about how much his mother would love me and that I could stay with her while he worked off-shore for a month and get to know her. I went to the loo and promptly left the restaurant never to return. Totally immature of me but I felt instant revulsion for him. Blanked him on the phone and months later, my mother rang me to say some guy had taken a full page ad out in the local weekly newspaper titled 'Looking for itwaseverthus'. My face still burns with mortification thinking about that episode, am sure the guy thought I'd been abducted or killed looking back but my god, he'd gone from hero to zero in a NewYorkMinute.

Like another poster, the flat head shape one happened to me too. Instant no-no.

I also find this fascinating. I think men probably do get icks but they may well be different - more annoying habits that get on their nerves, and they must certainly stop fancying women but I wonder if it’s less than this intense deep revulsion women seem to get, although I would really like to know if men get the deep intense ick feeling.

Yes I think anything that gives you the ick is relevant and means you no longer want intimacy and someone being brother-like is going to do that

“I always realised an exp looked familiar naked but the sudden realisation it was because he looked like the grinch when he was looking for something to wear...”

🤣🤣🤣🤣

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"

Haha! I actually felt irrational anger when I read this.

Such a fascinating thread.

I think the ick is just a symptom of our brain realising something is wrong.

With one guy, the click was when he was ranting about his job and said he wanted to take off and go live in the country. I thought that I wasn't in that plan and would I want someone so rash, and that was it for me, basically. He lost his appeal from then on.

Just curious as to whether men get this with women too?

I’ve just remembered one. I went on a date with a guy with spikey peroxide blond hair which I really liked.

Then I couldn’t see him for a hike. Our next date was a formal Christmas party. He turned up with his peroxide hair gone and now had sensible mousy brown hair, but worse was wearing a shiny green waistcoat. He looked like a snooker player and that was it for me.

He later revealed he’d brought a half bottle of champagne and some candles in case we decided to “Make the evening last longer”.

I couldn’t get the image of him shopping for candles and a half bottle of champagne (why not a full bottle?!) expecting sex out of my mind and made my excuses at end of evening and left. But it was the shiny waistcoat that did it.

Hike = while

I've had this too. With my first proper boyfriend, we met the summer before he went off to university (he was older than me I was still at college). He went off with huge declarations of love, we were going to last etc etc. I felt the same and considered moving to his university town to be with him whilst he was away (lunacy!). I went to visit after a few weeks and yep, still in love. He was so nice, treated me like a queen. He sneaked home to see me one weekend avoiding his (very pushy and clingy parents) and got caught out causing a heap of aggro and still we were 'so in love'.

Then he came home for Christmas and everything about him was ick! His smell, how he looked (he was attractive!) how he ate. I couldn't bear for him to touch me. I remember him having got into what I think of as university habits - instead of eating proper meals he'd scoff a loaf (a whole loaf!) of bread and tub of thousand island dip for dinner. That finished it for me I found it repulsive. I dumped him and he was heartbroken. He left university the following term and his parents blamed me, even knocked on my door and told me off for ruining his life. I'd just turned 18.

Never had it with anyone else, and never DH. I've been with DH for twelve years and he's grossed me out loads of times but never given me the ick!

I do wonder if men get this though. I went out with another chap after first boyfriend for a year and we were madly in love too. I was convinced I'd marry him. One day, completely randomly he turned up at my house and dumped me. I was devastated. So maybe he got the ick, or maybe it was karma for me breaking first boyfriends heart!!

Made us a cooked breakfast and gave me the broken fried egg. There were lots of other iffy things about him, like finding his porn mags were full of morbidly obese women (I was size 8). But it was the egg thing that did it! Otherwise a nice and decent guy.

Another boyfriend lost a job I had helped him get through friends. Went from quirky weed smoker to lazy arse stoner in a flash. Also I realised we were physically very similar which was yuk.

Funnily enough the really dubious blokes, like one who disappeared owing me money and did stuff like go into a pub to sell pairs of jeans before taking me to see a Vinnie Jones film.... them I have no hard feelings about!

Aargh! I've got it with DP, we've been together for years but lately so many of his habits give me the rage! I'm hoping its temporary/hormonal, I'm near menopause so it might be that.

Yes to the poster earlier who said her partner/DH eating yoghurt like he's digging to australia

I'll see your yogurt-eating partners and raise you a yogurt-makng DH. It gives me the irrational rage!

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"

Haha! I actually felt irrational anger when I read this.

Such a fascinating thread.

It's amazing the little things that trigger the Ick isn't it. We had a very... lustful relationship but it was proper no going back dead as soon as the Giant Baby Head revealed itself. I was doing his hair red too so he looked like a giant baby smeared in bean sauce 😭

I currently have the ick with the bloke I'm seeing!! Finding this thread was fate.

A comprehensive list of things that he does that make my blood boil:

• Snorts/sniffs so loudly and out of the blue it makes me jump out of my skin
• Sneezes as loudly as my Grandpa
• Fannies around for 10 minutes before we can leave to go anywhere
• Never, ever, ever wears socks when we lounge around in the evening... I'm not a fan of feet at the best of times.
• His mum packs him off with all the leftovers at every meal as though he's incapable of feeding himself.
• Last but not least, leaves all of his laundry in a chair ready for me to fold when I come round at the weekend...

I need to break up with him but he's such a lovely, sweet guy! Urgh

This has proper cheered me up after a ridiculous call with my boss! The cashew, the normal sized hair on a massive head have me howling - the white spit collection has had me heaving

No idea but the term is a bit immature.

Bsed on my research (purely of this thread) I conclude this comes from effeminate or twee men who you possibly knew for a while before you got together