I like your comment, thanks for it. I think I was that guy and your comments illuminate what my girlfriend must have been thinking. Over four years, sex went from mind blowing to, I think, harmful on both sides. What does it do to the psyche of a woman to lay there and "take it" from a man she doesn't respect? I know it hurt me, and I'm angry with myself that I participated in that state of affairs. I was the one who had to cut through the gordion knot of rationalizations and end it.

I think it's inevitable, now. Feminine desire runs the show, and it can be eroded simply by daily existence. We live in societies without real struggle. There are therefore no opportunities for you to see and appreciate his behavior in hard times, and rescue yourself from focus on petty (clumsy/unsexy) judgments. This is the world we built, now we must live in it.

All the best to you and your ex too.