Some time ago, a friend complained to me in a chat, saying that she sometimes suddenly felt very disgusted with her object lately, and the things that seemed innocuous in the past have now become unbearable points for her:
For example, every time I finish eating, I don't clean up the table immediately, but play games for a few hours and start to clean up the dishes and chopsticks before going to bed.
When I brush my teeth and wash my face, I often get water around the sink, and sometimes it even flows to the floor......
This disgust of occasional "seizures" made her feel very strange, obviously she didn't think there was anything wrong with it before, why did she mind so much now?
In fact, this intermittent aversion to partners is not uncommon in intimate relationships.
Previously, under a trending hashtag on TikTok called #ick, many people said they had similar experiences. For example, when we dance together, I feel disgusted by his bad dance steps, I feel sick when I see his extraordinarily lush body hair, and I feel flammy when he says something to me......
For the first time, a female guest on the British dating reality show Love Island used the word "the ick" to describe a situation in which she felt disgusted with the other person during her dating experience. "The ick" refers to a sudden aversion to a partner in a potential or current intimate relationship. Some people also refer to this condition as Sudden Rejection Syndrome in a relationship.
As the saying goes, "the lover's eye is in the eyes", when you love someone, you should feel that the other party is good everywhere. If you have a "dislike" for your partner, does it mean that you don't like this person? What is this intermittent dislike? Today we will talk about it.
When we don't like someone, it's easy to feel that the other person is not pleasing to the eye, but in fact, in addition to not loving each other, the following four types of reasons will also make us have intermittent dislike for our partner:
1. Many people don't think that the intermittent aversion to your partner may be because you hate yourself.
People who are self-loathing will always feel that they are not good enough, that they are not worthy of love, that they do not deserve to have a good relationship (White, 2013).
They feel that their true selves are unbearable and annoying, and even if someone expresses a favorable impression and praise for themselves, it is because the other person does not see their "true colors", as long as they understand what their true selves are like, the other party will feel deceived and abandon them (White, 2011).
Therefore, they will take the initiative to take some "operations" and take the lead in "cutting off" the possibility of the relationship continuing to develop. One of these "manipulations" is that they artificially put obstacles in the relationship, such as subjectively assuming bad expectations about the future of the partner and the relationship (Peel et al., 2019), or feeling that the partner's normal behavior is disgusting. This type of "manipulation" can be referred to as self-handicapping.
Suppose one day they and their partner do break up, they can also tell themselves that it is the other person who disgusts them (although this may be a "barrier" set up by them) that makes them unable to go on with the other person, not that the other person hates them.
Unfortunately, partner aversion can be difficult to get rid of for a period of time because they reduce their fear of abandonment through partner aversion and think they can control the harm they can do to themselves (Jones & Berglas, 1978).
2. Unresolved past trauma that is affecting your current relationship with your partner.
Dr. Jenn Mann notes that nausea is a common symptom of psychological trauma. Sometimes, the smell of a person can bring back a disturbing memory, a phrase from a person that reminds you of a traumatic event in the past, or sex with a person can remind you of painful experiences in the past...... Many times, you don't even realize that this arousal is happening, it's just that you instinctively feel that you should "run".
This type of intermittent aversion is not really about the "nasty" person in front of you, but about those traumatic experiences in your past that have not yet been resolved.
3. You vent other negative emotions in your life on your dislike of your partner.
Severe overtime, chaotic biological clock caused by irregular life, and too much work pressure recently...... There doesn't seem to be a good thing in life, and these negative emotions accumulate in your heart, and intentionally or unintentionally, you are transferred to the dislike of your partner.
4. There are some contradictions in your relationship that have not been completely resolved.
Many times, those contradictions that you think are turning the page are actually in your subconscious, and there is no past.
For example, during a certain argument, he slandered you verbally, maybe he had a mental intemperance, and you chose to hold it back and let it "pass", maybe it was the first time he took him to meet his parents, and he showed disrespect to your parents......
If those moments when they embarrass you are "endured" by you at the moment, if those bad words against you are said by them, in the context of the laughter at the time, you convince yourself that "they are just joking".
These cumulative hurts, both physical and emotional, can become a red thread that lurks in the relationship full of dangers. Eventually, it becomes a moment of mad disgust with them.
If none of the above reasons match, then there is one last possibility - you are actually not suitable.
Many people will face various pressures in their lives, such as being urged to marry by their parents and relatives, having a partner with their peers and looking like they are going to die alone, and working hard alone in a different place with no one to rely on...... All of these pressures can prompt a person to start a relationship in a hurry and ignore the difficult parts of the relationship that are difficult to reconcile.
And intermittent disgust is triggered by the incongruity between those who are "blocked" by you.
Finally, never underestimate our brains. Many times when we fall in love, we feel that everything is fine, and these intermittent dislikes for our partner are likely to be your subconscious self-preservation mechanism at work, which wants to remind you that the other person is not the right person to spend the rest of your life with.
In an interview with The Independent, neuroscientist Sally Sheldon noted that "when fearful, critical thoughts circulate through our brains, the brain releases stress hormones such as cortisol." This is because our brains can't tell the difference between reality and imagination, and we don't know what's really happening and what's just our fantasies. So, our survival response overwhelms our logic and keeps us on our toes. We told ourselves that the other person would hurt me, so I hated him. ”
First of all, we want to tell you who are struggling with intermittent misogynism and are reading the article: don't feel guilty for having this uncontrollable disgust with your partner.
As mentioned above, the development of intermittent misogyny is mostly traceable. Find out the cause of intermittent aversion, think about what to do, and believe that the problem can be solved.
Here, we provide you with 3 steps to locate the problem and corresponding suggestions, which may help you get out of the problem of intermittent aversion:
The first step is to carefully consider whether your intermittent dislike of the other person is due to the fact that there are indeed irreconcilable differences and differences between you in principle. For example, if you are a pure vegetarian and she is a meat lover, you firmly refuse premarital sex and she can't wait to have sex with you, etc.
If there is such a difference in personality or three views between you, then it is likely that continuing to walk is a double torture for yourself and the other person. Perhaps, it is better to separate.
Second, if you think about it, make sure that you are not completely "incompatible", but that there are some "knots" in your relationship that you are not aware of that need to be resolved. The best way to get rid of intermittent aversion is to be aware of and deal with the hidden contradictions in the relationship.
Try to ask yourself, "Did we have any unresolved conflicts before?" "Are the things that I felt 'in the past' really clear now?"
If there really is any "long-standing grudge" conflict, communication with your partner is obviously necessary. However, it is not difficult to imagine that if you confess your disgust directly to the other person, it will not only hurt them, but also make it difficult to communicate in a peaceful atmosphere.
So, try to talk to the other person in a roundabout way about whether they have been dissatisfied with each other recently, mention the experience that made you haunted, and confess your embarrassment and discomfort at the time.
Thirdly, if your aversion to the relationship is not the above two situations, but you are somewhat tired of the relationship, then you can try to give the relationship a vacation, in other words, you can spend some time away from each other for a while.
Take 3-5 days a week to be alone or with friends, so that the thoughts you miss each other on the days when you don't see each other may help rebuild your relationship. After a while, you can go out on a date for another day as you did when you were in love, and you may refocus on the things that made you choose to be with them in the first place.
Finally, after thinking about the above, if your dislike of TA is not the above three cases, and you still love this person very much, then you can calm down and ask yourself a few questions:
- Am I a little unconfident? Do I hate him because I'm afraid he'll leave me first?
- Did this act bring me back to some of my previous experiences? Could it be that what makes me sick is actually the past?
- Have I been under too much pressure at work lately, or have not eaten and slept well, so I'm in a bad mood?
The disgust caused by one's own problems still needs to be solved by oneself. For example, if you have transferred negative emotions to your partner because of too much stress recently, you need to find some reasonable ways to "vent" your negative emotions and not let the stress of life affect your relationship with your partner.
If you have a feeling of dislike for your partner because of your lack of confidence and disgust with yourself, you need to learn to "reconcile with yourself" and truly love yourself. It's not an easy thing to do, but it's central to how we get healthy intimacy.
Finally, if you find that the disgust is because the tata evokes trauma from your past, you can seek professional help. It's not worth letting the bad experiences of the past affect the happiness of the present.
In conclusion, having an intermittent dislike of a partner does not necessarily mean parting ways.
Sometimes, this aversion can be a window into improving intimacy or even helping a relationship take it to the next level.
More importantly, it can be an opportunity for us to truly understand ourselves: whether it's a deep self-loathing or an unseen wound from the past.
By taking advantage of these seemingly uncomfortable moments of disgust, we can not only heal ourselves, but also "rekind" a warm and comfortable intimate relationship.