The background is I'm mid forties, perimenopausal, on HRT and just coming out of a year of shitty poor health but am on the mend now. There is also a lot of extended family drama happening in my family that I'm trying really hard to stay out of, but staying out of it is taking up almost as much mental and emotional energy as being in the middle of it, if you see what I mean.
I've been with DH for 18 years and he is a good, kind, lovely hard working man. We have two kids who are in secondary school and doing well.
The thing that I'm confused about is that it feels like recently DH has become a bit of a sex pest. He talks about us having sex a lot. He's always saying he fancies me and compliments me on my body, etc. But it just feels...too much? I feel a bit objectified and awkward. He also tries to get me to look at him when he's naked and asks me to compliment him, which also feels forced. He touches me all the time, but it's always straight to my boobs or between my legs, or he'll grab my bum and squeeze it. I've noticed I tense up now whenever he comes near me because I'm anticipating a groping. I hate feeling like this. It's actually really upsetting me.
If I try and say this to him he says we've always been like this with each other, but I really don't feel like we have? Everything feels about sex now - or about how much he fancies me, or whether I fancy him. He doesn't really talk about much else with me. If I ignore him or tell him to stop, he gets all hurt and offended. Says I should be happy he still wants me so much. If we do have sex, he just then wants more and more. We'll have sex at night and then he wants it the next morning. If I turn him down in the morning, he says what about tonight then? It feels relentless and I'm getting really turned off by it all.
We have always had quite a good sex life although it's obviously ebbed and flowed as we've had babies, toddlers, stressful jobs and general life stuff. But sex has never been an issue until he recently started acting like this.
I can't work out what's going on. Have we really always been like this and I'm the one who's changed now that I'm on HRT? Or is it him who's changed and is suddenly acting like a Benny Hill character?
I feel sad a lot of the time because I'm starting to wish he would just leave me alone and be normal. I never thought I'd ever feel this way about him but I don't know how to make him stop acting weird and just go back to how he's always been.