The qualities that make us stand out the most, and the main reasons that people find us attractive, can be a blessing and a curse. Sometimes our most appealing traits can become a reason for a breakup.

"The ick" was one of the more unusual words to be added to the Cambridge Dictionary in 2024. The phrase describes the feeling of suddenly seeing something about a partner in a new light, and finding it so unattractive it can't be unseen. Once you have the ick, it is unfortunately incurable.

While the phrase might be intended in a lighthearted manner, it shows that there can be unattractive qualities about a partner that are not immediately obvious. In fact, we might have found those qualities really attractive earlier in the relationship. This is called "fatal attraction" – when a person comes to dislike aspects of a partner that they were initially attracted to. "It doesn't mean fatal in the sense of deadly, but fatal as in the sense of prophetic," says Diane Felmlee, a social psychologist from Penn State University in the US.

"I like to think of it as having 'too much' of an attractive quality," she says. "Disenchantment with a partner can occur even when people get what they want, and perhaps because they get what they want."

During her own research, Felmlee asks people for reasons they were first attracted to a partner, why they became dissatisfied and why past relationships ended. Most people listed various needs that were not being met by their ex-partner as a cause for a breakup. But Felmlee noticed some of those missed needs were related to reasons they were attracted to an ex-partner in the first place.

"It is a different interpretation of the same quality," she says. "It's a negative way of looking at a positive trait. I have an example here of someone who said they were attracted to their partner because she was considerate. And then they complained that she said 'sorry' too much. Well, that sounds pretty considerate."

Other examples identified by Felmlee include being attracted to someone with a high-powered job, only to find that they spend too long at work, or finding a partner funny, but then complaining that they don't take life seriously. Easygoing, laid-back partners became flaky or never on time. "Easygoing is great, as long as you're punctual," says Felmlee with a laugh.

Likewise, partners who are at first judged to be powerful or strong become controlling or overbearing after a breakup. People who are nice become pushovers. Successful people become workaholics.

With fatal attraction, the stronger the initial attraction to a particular characteristic, the more likely it is to become a reason for a breakup. Why might it be that big positives end up being........

© BBC