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 remember getting this from previous boyfriends and crushes.

Strangely I’ve never felt like this about DH, and I’ve seen him warts and all (including smelly farts and cleaning up vomit when he was ill). But for some reason he just feels “right” to me.

I particularly remember the ick when pregnant. There was these poor Japanese men that sat near me on the bus in the morning and there was a smell from them that I could only smell when pregnant and it made me sick. There was also a man locally who I would see on the bus or at the bus stop who gave me the boak, for no reason whatsoever

He then looked up at me lovingly and said 'I'm a little baby, wah wah' then started suckling at my breast like an actual baby. I so so so almost threw up

Oh god, even the thought of this makes me want to vomit. It is so repellant.

Quite new relationship decades ago but still vom-worthy. Bless him, he was very shy and unnatural around me, I think I made him very nervous and twitchy. Had a good job but had been unemployed for some time for a while before and thought the expression 'when I was a government artist' was hilarious, instead of the phrase that was around back then 'drawing the dole' .... if he used that fucking line less than three times daily I was doing well. Mildly amusing first time. 103 times in I wanted to strangle him.

He also didn't have any suitable shoes to go to a club and we had to drive for miles to his brother's house to borrow some hideous stand-ins that were far to big and he kind of shuffled around all night looking like a complete dick while I fumed, arms folded, clock watching, next to him.

I ghosted him and was really mean. Very low point in my dating history!

Icks can wear off

I don't agree. When you are that repulsed by someone, you are not waiting for anything to wear off. You want out. Immediately!

He then looked up at me lovingly and said 'I'm a little baby, wah wah' then started suckling at my breast like an actual baby. I so so so almost threw up

🤢🤮 surely that would give anyone and everyone the Ick? I think I would have bodily thrown him off the bed and out the window at that, even sacrificing a nipple in his jaws to do so. Vom!

I had this with my first boyfriend. All great, getting along fine until we went to a nightclub one night. James's "Sit down" came on and he literally sat down. In the middle of the dance floor

Howling!!

OMG reading some of these makes my emotions range from hilariously funny to pure seething anger 😂😂😂.. Actual comedy gold.

I recall from 25 years ago when I was just 15, the sudden revulsion I felt when a boy I'd brought home (whom I'd been dying to snog for ages), used the word "biccies" when I made him a cup to tea. Attraction - poof!

@Hmpher

I got ‘the ick’ over how one boyfriend put his socks on - he’d sit on the edge of the bed like he was doing something really important and worthy, carefully pulling them up over his toes and smoothing them before slowly easing his other leg up for the same treatment.

I have tears in my eyes picturing this! Ick!

I’ve Icked so many times. Most extreme one was when I travelled to London to stay with a guy I’d only been on one proper lovely date with (good friend of a very good friend). He was handsome, great job, good politics, clever, nice - a rare package! I can still see him coming up the escalator looking gorgeous and smiling only to reveal he was wearing (non sporty) shorts, trainers and white tennis type sports socks pulled up to full mid calf. Full on ick. My heart sank and it turned into the longest weekend of my life.

So judgemental and superficial but o was physically repulsed after that in a way that was actually physical. I was actually angry about those socks.

It's weird though, how some icky things don't trigger me with DH. I mean, they really should, and they nearly do. He talks about 'having a doze'. He pronounces the L in 'almonds' and 'hiccoughs' how it's spelt. He makes a terrible slooshing noise when he eats. He likes Rubens. And Tchaikovsky. But although these things irritate (and some of them disappoint) they never amount to an ick. He doesn't stand silhouetted in the doorway of a morning, surveying his domain (sc. the back garden) the way an ex of mine did, legs astride, hands on hips, drawing a deep proprietorial breath and exhaling: aaah!

That was an ick moment.

I dated a lovely guy, we’d been out for quite a few dates and I decided it was time to DTD, he was kissing my boobs and looked up at me and said ‘do you know why men like boobs so much? 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. Was awkward to say the least!!! Boak!

@knukles I did. DP of 16 years. We split 13 days ago. My life is bliss again

Instant sexual chemistry, couldn't get enough of each other... turned up to a date in a polyester peach shirt (and referred to it as peach coloured). I couldn't even finish the date. Suddenly all this other stuff crawled out. Eating noises, the way he held his cutlery, "university of hard knocks", and... drum roll........... referring to me as totty.

How? How did he go from hot to vom in 20 minutes??

Ooh, here's the science bit!

The way he took his pants off over his erection, with a sort of springy pyong!

Urgh nooooo, this was one of my ick factors with ex! Also the way he would be incredibly serious about sex and put a condom on with a look of intense concentration as if he was defusing a bomb, then look at me with this puppy-eyed stare while DTD. But although I got the ick, I tried to fight it and squash it down and limped on a couple more years... (not with much sex though I have to say).

With him the relationship was hitting the rocks and that's partly why things started to really get to me. But I've had it before when a man turned up in a short-sleeved cheesecloth shirt, and with another man who I met for an assignation to find he had had loads of fresh breath mints and it was like kissing a piece of minty meat. Total instant ick.

I think Caroline in the Archers once told someone (maybe Shula) she was bonking Brian and they said "Oh no not Brian, he has little chains on his shoes!" and it was shortly over? :o

@managedmis he was a lovely guy, we're still in touch, although he does annoy me by constantly telling everyone how amazing and alternative he & his wife are. All I can think when I see a photo of him being hipster and cool and retro is 'yes, but you bent at the knees

Actually, this article is much better.

I read that a lot of men feel this way about us, right after blowing their beans

Tolerance has been going out of fashion for a long time.

@catinb0oots I 100% thought he was SHITTING in your bath and I was horrified that the bald head was what did it. That’ll teach me to be reading Mumsnet when I’m super tired!!

I had this with an ex bf and ended our brief 6 week spell because of repeated icks

I introduced him to my dad (not purposely as we bumped into him in the pub!) and he introduced himself as an 'avid footballer' as In hi mr marbles, my name is Chris and I'm an avid footballer and keen fan of...' and I cringed inwardly. Nothing bad there either way but Ick all the same.
He used to change his socks and put the dirty ones folded neatly into his jeans pocket... I couldn't get the thought of sweaty pockets out of my head
Lastly, he would brush his teeth immediately after eating anything at all and his kisses were cold and minty which weirdly disconcerted me and I got quickly to the point that I couldn't stand it as they felt sloppy somehow

I had a lucky escape from him though definitely as when I spoke with him about breaking up he screamed at me then punched a dent into the door... intuition telling us something maybe?