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?'

[BillyN0Mates]

My Ick moment came after a boyfriend did two things:

Had such terrible skin that he scratched all night in bed. In the morning the sheet was covered in skin flakes 🤢

Then he told a joke as if it was his own. It wasn't; it was from Rob Newman circa 1996 😡

[ForestYeti]

My ex would take a mouthful of food before starting to speak 🤢

[workofheart]

Just resurrecting this as I am in the situation right now.

How do you cope if you get The Ick very badly during lockdown (TBH I had it before and we've had some ups and downs but this period has only magnified it and brought it fully to my attention every second of the day)? I am so irritated by every little thing he does - being in the same room as me, trying to touch me, wanting to go on every single bloody walk with me (I just need some space aaaaagh), wanting to go to the shop with me, hinting we aren't having enough (ok, any) sex: "shall we make some time for some sex at the weekend", ugh, I can't cope anymore.

And how do you end it with someone who thinks things are all fine, is making plans for the future about all the days out we can have, holidays, house renovations, children...and has no idea what is going on in my head (and why should he either, it's not his fault)? All can do is daydream about running away. I am having to pretend my irritation is down to work stress, when work is actually a welcome escape right now.

I think I am also worried that as I have just turned 40, have no children, but would like children, I am running out of time so maybe I should just settle and try to overcome this issue somehow? We've only been together about 14 months, but the thought of a lifetime with him made me shudder :( he will be so gutted when I tell him and he won't see it coming. I don't know what to do :(

[workofheart]

He is now vaping over the food while cooking. FFS. I need

[EmbarrassedUser]

I can’t describe it but he was just so casual when he was walking along in my flat. And he made sex noises...shudder 🤦‍♀️

[Twunk]

OMG yes! One morning he put his arm around me and I involuntarily shuddered. I thought “oh bugger, that’s the end of that.” Sex was fabulous and he was lovely, but I always knew it would only last so long.

[Twunk]

(Just replying as this was in my roundup email)

[AMBE123]

You have to talk to him. Be upfront and say you need some space. It's possible that when you can air all the things going round in your head (nicely) you might be able to breathe a sigh of relief and the ick might vaporise.

[LouH1981]

Yup, I was 17 and besotted with a boy in the year above. To my amazement we got together at a party and I was head over heels. And then it started...he would just constantly call my house (it was 1998 - no mobiles) and moan at my mum if I wasn’t in. Drove me insane, cannot stand clingy men.
I had to get rid and the night I did he wore these disgusting brown shoes. Awful things they were. That was it, definitely no going back. Tried to let him down gently but he ended up sobbing on a park bench with his gross brown shoes. We’d only been together about 4 weeks....

[Wilkie1956mog]

Isn't this being very hard on just ordinary human beings though? We all have our own irritating habits.

[VWLolabunny9119]

I had this. I think I was in a blind sense of eutopia of it all being perfect and then noticed one thing and it opened my mind to a world of ick. It started with gross smelly hand towels in his house. Hands were cleaner before you washed and dried them than after using the minging towels. After that loads of stuff made me feel ick.

[Babochan88]

So obviously the term ‘ick’ has been around for a while. But Leanne from love island brought the term ‘the ick’ back into popularity. Me thinks OP is a Journalist looking for content...😂

[Baxterbear]

I had to end it with a guy I was dating when after snuggling up to him in bed one night, I made the horrifying discovery that he "stored" his bogies behind his left knee! Definitely an ick to too far....

[Baxterbear]

WorkofHeart you seem so utterly stressed at the moment and I sense that you are about ready to implode! All I can suggest is that you be totally honest with your partner about needing/wanting your space and explain that sometimes you need time on your own. Life is all upside down for most of us right now and living in such claustrophobic conditions is definitely a not healthy for any relationship and things that would not usually bother you so much suddenly become magnified and appear insurmountable. Hopefully things will start to return to "normal" pretty soon so, don't make any important decisions right now but do try to explain how you're feeling and maybe you can both work through things together? Whatever you decide to do I wish you lots of luck 😊

[angeltop]

Wow, there’s a word for it, ick...perfect.

[L4ur3n123]

I worked through the ick. Incredibly difficult but came thru other end.

[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.

[sheetspread]

Shit that was long, soz. Shouldn't have done that second coffee.

[LuxLuxLux84]

My ex putting his chewed ball of nicotine gum NEXT to his Slice of cheesecake on the plate so he could eat it.

[Ruby0707]

I think I'm getting this at the moment. Been with this guy for nearly a year who is absolutely amazing, really thoughtful and we've been having a great time together.

I now have this feeling which is growing that I don't want to be with him and everything he does is starting to annoy me.

Is this it? I'm actually really sad thinking that it is.

[firecracker69]

My ex was a really handsome but very vain man. However, his hair was a complete and utter fucking mess. I pushed past this because he SEEMED to be so lovely. I almost cancelled my second date with him because it looked so horrendous. From the front it looked perfectly normal, as if he had a full head of hair. When he turned to the side it was quite similar to Woody Woodpecker - a crock of hair at the front and fuck all at the back. It was always caked in hair products and combed over to fuck, in a piss poor attempt at disguising the ever increasing baldness. No running my fingers through that! He proudly told me he cut it himself. Not really something he should have been boasting about. I hinted it'd suit him if he shaved it off, I was told in no uncertain terms that wasn't happening.

One scorching summer day, I drove him home with the roof down on my car. Oh deary me. He literally clung to his remaining few hairs as if his life depended on it.

Wherever I went there were sniggers and stares. One woman even drunkenly pointed out "fucking hell, you've got a shit load of Silvikrin on your hair."

One night, he bent down to put his shoes on and the whole hair sprayed mess flopped forward to reveal the most enormous bald spot. It was the first time I'd fully clapped eyes on it. I shuddered in disgust. No sooner had he left than I texted him and ended it.... I used the excuse of I needed to be alone.....

That fucking bald spot was a warning sign.... a huge red flag.... oh how I should've listened to my instinct.

We got back together. He turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. He treated me appallingly. A dirty, lying cheat - with the worst comb over known to walk the planet.

I had the last laugh.... but that's another story.

[Anotherlovelybitofsquirrel]

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

[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...

[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 🤣🤣