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?'

[Majorcollywobble]

Well - his eating a pot noodle in whatever fashion was enough for me .....

[NowYouListenToMeFella]

Have also had the ick but it's known as the turn in my neck of the woods. Dating a guy for a while. One night he started kissing my neck all soft and feathery strokery like. That was it. No coming back from it. I couldn't get away from him fast enough.

[BlueCornsihPixie]

You can get over the Ick!

With my current bf, I got the ick. Everything he did got to me and I just really went off him. It was right before Christmas though and I thought it was mean to break up then so I decided to wait till January.

By the time January came around the ick had gone and I was back to loving him. And it's been 5 years and the ick hasn't come back. I think it was something to do with my period, I never want sex right before my period and DP always annoys me more. So I think it was major PMT.

[LuluJakey1]

When I was pregnant with DS1, I got the 'ick' with DH. It happened once for about a week and then when I was almost 8 months it came back and was rampant. I have no idea what it was about and he was doing absolutely nothing apart from being considerate, affectionate, helpful and his usual funny self. But every single thing about him enraged me. His breathing, his face, his voice, how he ate, his clothes, his touch, the way he held a book, his laugh, his smell. I could not bear him in my space - which I was defining as the planet. If he was nice to me I was furious. It was December and I actually contemplated not having him at the birth-due early January- and telling him to go to his parents in Bradford for two weeks over Christmas so I could be alone without him. He would have been devastated if I had .

He just let me get on with it all- and did not react. I could not speak to him some days. It was awful. I told the midwife who said it's not uncommon and that was that! Then suddenly, over a period of 24 hours, a couple of days before Christmas, it just disappeared and I was my normal self again and loved him to bits.

We laugh about it now but I still feel really guilty. It never happened with DD or DS2. It must have been pregnancy related.

[DickDewy]

Can we not call it 'the ick'? That in itself is utterly nauseating.

I think once a relationship is on its way out - every little thing becomes annoying/repulsive.

[Inkdmama]

Yeah I had the ick with my ex...I tried my best to ignore it/try and make it work but I couldn't. I started to really dislike everything about him I called the wedding off and left. I can't explain why I felt like that after 2 years..i tried to make it work for another 2 years but I really couldn't bear him near me or even in the same room, even his breathing made me cringe. I slept on the sofa for 2 years, avoided going home and i was miserable..best thing j did was leave. I still can't understand what made me go that way. Even now when I see him in public my skin crawls.

[Ronnie27]

Yes it’s absolutely real and used to happen to me for the most ridiculous of reasons. A boyfriend of mine turned up in an ill advised vest when I was about 17 and I remember looking at him sideways in the car and just thinking “no”. And as if by magic I just didn’t fancy him anymore. Worse still it can’t be undone!

[TimeToChangeNameAgain]

My friend refers to it as a sealant as when it happens it makes her vag seal shut 😁

[ofay]

Sorry DickDewy ick is the perfect word.

[SanFrancisco49er]

There was a really lovely guy at uni who amazingly, actually had a crush on me...tall, dark, handsome and had quite a few girls after him. However I perpetually had the 'ick' as he ate some of my sweetcorn out of the tin with his fingers. It also put me off tinned sweetcorn for life.

[Sundancer77]

Ha ha, wasn’t it Chandler who had similar in Friends? All was fine but then he’d think her head was too big, laugh too annoying etc etc

[BitOfFun]

I got it really badly when I saw the guy sleeping with his mouth open. All of a sudden I could picture him as an old man with his false teeth on the bedstand, so I left before he woke up and stopped returning his calls.

[QuantamBaby]

I've had the Ick - it's definitely a thing!

I was a dating a really nice bloke in the winter and he wore a lot of nice thick jumpers. One day we met in a cafe, he took off his jumper to reveal a big thick gold chain necklace.

I just put my coffee down, left, and never saw him again....

[AllideasAndNoAction]

In my day ‘the ick’ was just called going off someone.

[lavenderlemonade]

Was dating a guy once and we were at the cinema and he ordered nachos covered in hot cheese sauce- which I was disgusted with in the first place as it's not a cinema food as far as I'm concerned. As the adverts were playing he was crunching his way through them and I could see grease running down his arm and chin and it was all open mouth munching and I just knew then I would never be seeing him again.

Another guy had a massive booger the whole time we were on a date which is a completely normal human thing but it would suck in and out of his nostril every time he breathed and it really put me off. If I knew him better I would of mentioned it but I was so overcome by the ick I couldn't bring myself to say it.

[Louise91417]

Really really good looking fella that used to come into work regularly..all the girls i worked with fancied him..im not one to get overly excited about a good looking but this one was a real eyecatcher..nice suit, boyish goodlooks, lovely personality...then he ruined it..came in one day licking a 99"..it looked so wrong..the ick feeling never left me

[2018SoFarSoGreat]

In the end, It was the burgundy y-fronts. And how they kind of sagged and were baggy. I knew right then that I couldn't. Just couldn't. No more. Can't even look at pictures of him since, and he is the father of my DD :( Poor, lovely man.

[BitOfFun]

Allideas, it's more more extreme that that though. It's going from attraction to instant repulsion.

[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!

[thepeopleversuswork]

I’ve had this many a time...

Isn’t this really just nature’s way of telling you you never properly fancied them and we’re just settling for a bit?

I’ve found this happens when I’ve been out with Mr So So who will do for a while and when I’ve tried to force something against my instincts. Rarely with someone you really like and are properly sexually compatible with.

[catinb0oots]

Yes I had a brief fling with Richard the estate agent (20 years my senior). Had previously found his bald head sexy and rugged. One day walked in to my bathroom to see him sitting in my bath with the sun glinting off his shiny head.

Sexy and rugged no more. Instant ick.

Poor ole Richard 🤣

[NegroniOnIce]

BooksAreMyOnlyFriends - sorry, I was needlessly snarky with you! Sorry you've had a bad day

[sparklefarts]

OP did you post this almost word for word before? Like a few months ago?

[NamechangeoutedbyMIL]

There was another thread about this a while back.

Some of my instant icks:

Farted in my kitchen in just his saggy holey boxers

Wore a watch (?)

Had a velcro wallet

Called a ten pound note a ten spot

Kept trying to snog me when I was watching a film

All different men who I had quite liked up until that exact moment then I thought if you so much as breathe near me again I'm going to stab you in your eyeballs

[PlanDeRaccordement]

It comes and goes this “ick” or irritation. A relationship is not doomed by it. I get days of it at a time with my DH. It always passes. Either I come to my senses or DH changes an icky habit.