- “The Ick” Or Intuition? Knowing When to Walk Away - September 19, 2025
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- Rebuilding Family Bonds After Stress and Trauma: The Power of Family Therapy - July 31, 2025
I Have “The Ick”
Have you heard that phrase? Maybe in casual passing when asking a friend about a recent date. Maybe on a popular media post or video. Did you have to ask what it meant? Did you google it the first time? As a popular turn of phrase, the definition can change based on who you ask or where you look. Here is our working definition of “The Ick.”
The Ick: A sudden feeling of repulsion or disgust towards a partner’s seemingly small habits, mannerisms, or quirks, leading to a sudden loss of attraction.
What gives you “The Ick?” I challenge you to ask five people you know, and you will get five very different answers. The way they groom their facial hair, the way they chew their food, if they do not say thank you to the waiter, the way they cuff their pants, the drink they order. The list can go on and on. However, what are those things I just listed? To put it bluntly, those are superficial turn offs. When “The Ick” first became a popular phrase it was more common to hear a rebuttal along the lines of “Is it that bad?” Nowadays the more common response is along the lines of “There’s no coming back from ‘The Ick.’”
Why is that? Why do we let “The Ick” be a justifiable reason to end a relationship with a potential romantic partner?
The Self-Saboteur
The idea of self-sabotaging is something that cannot be ignored. We all have our inner self-saboteur (I’m looking at you anxiety). For some of us it manifests at work because we always think we have time for coffee on the way to the office which results in us being late to the staff meeting every week. It can come up in our friendships in the form of setting unrealistic expectations of what it means to be/show up as a good friend. It even shows up when we procrastinate on our basic responsibilities (shoutout to the piece of furniture that holds your pile of clothes you have not put away).
Self-sabotaging in a romantic aspect can come in obvious ways: cheating, lying about important things, ghosting. Have you considered that when you say you have “The Ick” that it’s your inner saboteur? In a gentle perspective, our self-saboteur is trying to protect us. We fear abandonment, we fear rejection, we fear success. In comes our self-saboteur to stop all of those potentials in their tracks before they have even really begun. However, in doing so we also end the possibility of joy, connection, and love.
This is my encouragement to ask yourself: Do I have a habit of looking for “The Ick?” Am I quick to call out “The Ick” and use that as justification to stop seeing someone? If yes, let’s work on understanding our self-saboteur so we feel safe enough to take the risk.
A Disguised Red Flag
However, maybe there is something deeper. Maybe “The Ick” is a disguised red flag, a deeper intuition recognizing a problematic pattern in the person’s character or behavior that’s being masked as a minor quirk. The tricky part here is how or when can we truly tell if there is a red flag? When I think of what I consider to be a red flag in a potential romantic partner I think of qualities that suggest someone might be controlling, someone who has poor communication skills, someone who is emotionally unavailable. How can I know if someone has those red flags simply based on behavior like how they treat the wait staff at a restaurant? It’s hard to differentiate the two, so I feel most often people would rather pull the trigger quickly and decide to deem “The Ick” as a reason to leave than do the work to explore and process if a partner has true red flags.
What about Intuition?
Intuition is another term that can seem a little “woo-ish” if you do not subscribe to the idea that people can have intuition. What is intuition?
Intuition: An inner sense of understanding, knowledge, or warning that is not based on conscious reasoning.
Seems far-fetched, not too different from that gut feeling of “The Ick.” However, I like to align the feeling of an intuition with a sense of being calm, grounded, steady, and wise. You just know and feel resolved in this knowledge. Whereas, “The Ick” is more aligned with a reaction to anxiety. So how do we get to a place where we align more with intuition versus “The Ick?” Let’s take it back to The Sound Relationship House from John and Julie Gottman. I have previously discussed the importance of building a strong friendship foundation through building love maps, sharing fondness and admiration for each other, and turning towards bids for connection. Those are equally important relationship components to look for in a partner and qualities that point towards a positive intuition of someone who can be a partner. However, let’s talk about the things that would be missing in order to feel confident to lean into your intuition that someone is not the partner for you.
When to Walk Away
In The Sound Relationship House when talking about Managing Conflict, the Gottmans identify that two key components of that are a partner who is able to accept influence and dialogue about problems. So the opposite of course is not being able to accept influence and not being able to dialogue about problems. What are some of those behaviors in real time?
Defensiveness: Being so focused on defending your own viewpoint that you don’t listen to or acknowledge your partner’s concerns.
Contempt: Expressing scorn for your partner’s emotions, thoughts, or preferences, such as by saying, “That’s ridiculous,” or “Get real”.
Stonewalling: Refusing to engage with your partner on the issue, which can manifest as silence, ignoring, or physically withdrawing from the conversation.
Harsh Start-ups: Beginning a conversation with blame, absolute statements (like “you always” or “you never”), or contemptuous language, which derails the discussion from the start.
Entrenchment: Becoming unwilling to be flexible or budge from your own position on an issue.
Avoidance: Physically leaving, changing the subject, postponing the conversation with no specific plan on when to revisit it, denying the problem exists.
Again, the list can go on and on. The point is that these are behaviors that can lead to the feeling of intuition when someone is not the right person for you. If you feel that you do not have influence over mutual decisions and if you feel that your partner is not able to engage in dialoging about problems within your relationship, then you should follow your intuition and it may be time to walk away.
However, I understand that life is not black and white. Sometimes ending a relationship is not an easy or logical decision. There is always potential for change. We just need some help and guidance on how to get there. We need clarity. If intuition does not feel like enough, then let us help.
Visit www.sdrelationshipplace.com or call us at (619) 535-8890 to schedule a consultation and get connected with a San Diego therapist who specializes in utilizing Gottman Method skills to help individuals or couples navigate knowing when to walk away.