Lady you are of Indo-european heritage, so I expect the gods you have upset are familiar to us all regardless of their actual name. You will have angered a maternal deity who runs a successful harmonious home -such as Juno or Frigga. Probably you neglected your responsibilities as the mother of a household because you thought you knew best regardless of your husband's instructions or the custom of your ancestors and this caused damage to your family. Harming your own family is a grave sin. Actually its about the one real sin in pre-christian indo-european religion. Now in this life you are cursed to be a scold who knows best, never having a husband and children because you want to run your mouth not a good happy home. This will continue until you learn the errors of your ways. At this rate it looks like you are running out of time to overcome this in the present life.

It could be quite easy to reform. Yes, men would tolerate your shit more if you were hotter. The easy way to achieve that is to lose weight. Just eat less. You can't win that one unless you just do less of what you want, then as if by magic the goddess will remove your weight and you get what you actually want and more -you will get more men and men who will put up with more shit.

Same applies to the bigger problem -your attitude. Some men will still match with you, in spite of being fat .(So its not the fat that is the real deal breaker). All you have to do is not lecture them, not rant at them, not tell them men are crap to women, be good company and they will come round your house and watch documentaries with you. I advise you not to watch leftist documentaries. Most men are only pretending if they say they can tolerate that stuff. They just want to bang you and hope you will make them dinner and do their laundry. They will put up with some shit to do so -even to the point of working all their life to provide for you and your children -like your dad did- but give men less leftist shit and you will find everything easier.

In short, you can't have it all your own way if you want the benefit of a man to watch TV with. Can't you hear the gods laugh? Its such a small thing really but you just seem to fail to see it.

You can't break a cycle without disruption and you can't end expectations without disappointment.

Try to make it light and simple "I think its your turn to pay this time" "Do you want me to get this round in or shall I get it and you pay me back later?" "Can we go halves on the shopping?"

If this fails, then you may need to a have a conversation but don't get upset with her. Women can't cope with that. They are not getting the tribute to the vagina they thought they deserved and then you are angry too. She pushes back to the rejection not the rationality and fairness of the request and the hamster then often concludes that you must be some silly loser who is being a little bitch not stepping up.

You do need to go gently. You must expect some disappointment and negative impact. You still have to do it to not feel taken advantage of. After all, if you feel that way, your generosity will die off anyway.

I’m a generous guy—not just with women—generous… but not stupid. However, I realize that some of my habits, which I’ve repeated maybe a little too often, create a routine where she expects a certain kind of behavior.

This is a very definite thing that will happen.

For example, I’ve never met a woman who cooks, so since I like it, I’m happy to do it. The problem is that this creates a sort of imbalance. Sure, we can split the chores, but I don’t think washing dishes even comes close to me doing the grocery shopping, cooking with care, and so on.

Correct.

Just because you enjoy something doesn't stop it being provider behaviour.

Another example is paying when we go out; I want to emphasize that I don’t pay for dinners, but maybe a few drinks—nothing more. However, if this has happened more than once, the girl expects it to keep happening.

Yes. This is provider behaviour.

I have to be honest—I’m the one who has a hard time breaking this cycle.

Oh, I can sooooooooo relate my dude.

By now, I feel like there’s this unwritten agreement, and it feels strange to act differently.

Yes. She has settled into "he pays, he cooks" and she is very happy with this. You have given the impression you are happy with this too.

I have absolutely no idea where to start; maybe my early frame is wrong, or maybe I shouldn’t even be putting myself in these kinds of situations. She’s the one who should be making an effort for me, not the other way around…

But why would she?

and I find that the more I keep doing nice things, the more they keep having expectations—nothing new there; TRP explained it to me very well.

Yes

So I’m looking for advice on how to avoid finding myself in these situations, and specifically, I’m currently in a situation with a FWB where I’m experiencing the scenarios described above and I want to break out of the loop without pouting

Ok, I have a lot to say on this matter, because this reflects my life very very well. I'll probably forget half of it, so please reply and we'll go from there.