TW: sexual assault (not from husband)
Tldr: my husband always catcalls me and I feel pressured to have sex with him. Sex is scary to me due to being sexually assaulted at 18.
I’m having an issue with my husband at the moment, and I don’t know how to approach it with him since he seems to get defensive whenever I tell him to stop doing this. But he is always catcalling me and whistling whenever I don’t wear pants or don’t wear a shirt around the house. I tend to get a little warm sometimes so that’s why I do this.
It also doesnt help that I am on the spectrum and have major issues with my body image. Every compliment to me feels like a lie told to make me feel better about myself.
I know people might say that I’m lucky, but there is a big reason why all of this bothers me. When I was 18 I was sexually assaulted by my then “boyfriend” while very very drunk. I didn’t know what all he had done to me until he joked about it the next morning. At the time, I wasn’t bothered by it. But as the years have gone by, and now that I am with my husband, it seems like sex has become this very scary thing to me and I don’t want to even think about it. And it feels like I am under a lot of pressure to have sex with him whenever he flirts with me.
My husband knows about my experience and has always offered his support. However, he made a joke not too long ago that really did not go over well and I haven’t stopped thinking about it.
Basically, I bought some wine from the store and put it in the fridge. He points to it and asks me if I’m going to drink it tonight. I said no, it is a weeknight and that wouldn’t be a good idea. He says “aww” and I ask why he says that. Well, he makes the joke essentially saying that he wants me to get drunk so that he could have sex with me. My husband in general says raunchy things like this quite often, but this was way too far and I told him that. He did apologize for it, but I haven’t forgotten about it.
I have a lot of issues I am working on in therapy but I don’t even know how to approach something like this. How should I talk to my husband about this?