Why did it take my ex gf to break up with me before I realized how badly I was treating her?

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Lack of two things. Communication, and self-reflection. The latter is more important, and is the reason for the lack of the former.

This is starting to worm its way into every single one of my relationship answers, but people are not furniture. But until we can become emotionally mature, we are bound to treat them that way. You treated your girlfriend like a a grandfather clock, set her up in the living room of your life, enjoyed the chiming even when sometimes you just preferred silence.

Your inability to self-reflect caused you to not realize you were treating her like furniture. If you had been watching her, interacting with her, listening to her, instead of just letting her be there, you would have seen the exasperated looks on her face whenever you just couldn’t engage with her.

But you weren’t. You were locked up in your own world, unable to see the bigger picture around you, all these other people that have their own lives, their own histories, their own motivations.

You can’t actually know yourself by looking at yourself. Well, some people can, but it’s a hard-won skill that can actually make you very rich if you can learn it. Instead, you can only know yourself by seeing yourself reflected in other people.

You need to find someone, preferably multiple people, you can trust to give you honest feedback about yourself. And then you need to ask that person to give you feedback. And then you need to listen to that person and at least try out what they advise you to do.

Ideally, one of these people is your girlfriend.