Me: early 40s GF: early 20s

I have been in LTR with the girlfriend for about a year and a half. We do not live together and generally just have one night a week to have sex and otherwise spend time together. I have expressed to her that I expect sex at least once a week. She has generally has been good with this and had a week earlier this month where she initiated sex twice. So, I see her effort and have rewarded it with attention.

However, she displeased me last week when I came over to hang out and despite her flirty talk about what we would being doing that day (sent both while I was on the way and also said when I was actually at her place), as I was initiating she said she "didn't feel like it". Since we don't live together, I didn't think the usual advice of "going out to do something for a few hours" applied, and "go be busy in another room" didn't seem to work because her place is a one-bedroom apartment so going from the tv room to sit in the bedroom would be odd.

So, I just stayed on the couch but didn't let her have cuddles and played with my phone while the tv played. She knew I was disappointed and tried to smooth it over by trying to make upcoming plans or play my favorite tv shows. Eventually I fell asleep on purpose on the couch and when I woke up a short while later, said I was tired and went home. She obviously knew I was upset and the next day I got drama about how I was "checked out" et cetera.

This week, she is on her period and our weekly night is coming up. I sent her a flirty text this morning and got (as I expected), "I don't want to when I'm on my period". When I hinted there other things we could do, I got (paraphrased wall of text), "I'm annoyed you're trying to guilt me into something I don't want to do. I don't want a repeat of last week". I replied, "it's ok - no big deal :-)", which got me a call where I repeated that I wasn't upset at all. She probably believe me about 80% and thinks in the back of her head that I am displeased.

My question: how I should handle this week? As preparation, I have let her know that work is very busy for me this week (it is, but not so busy I can't make time if I wanted). So, I see two options:

  1. flake on date night by being busy at work. I think she will believe this, but have just an itch in the back of her mind that I am displeased.
  2. show up for date night and escalate.

If I show up for date night and she gives a hard no, I see several possible ways I can react:

a. stay for the remainder of the date while not appearing upset.

b. leave because I am busy.

I find it hard to think of how i can stay while not appearing butthurt. I have told her before that if she doesn't feel like sex, I don't feel like cuddling her. And given the small apartment, I can't go to another room without it coming off as being butthurt.

If I leave because I am busy, I also fear it will come off as being butthurt. I have considered the option of having a friend call, which I would frame as being a work matter, that I could then use to get out. This would be plausible because we have had dates together cut short by a pressing matter with my job. The downside is that in that scenario, I am leaving because I am reacting to an external matter and she may not make the connection of "lack of sex" = "lack of attention".

What is my ideal approach this week. Again, I have seen her effort - the first two weeks of this month were pretty close to ideal and I have been explicit in recognizing that, but she took a step backward by withholding last week. So, I think my response needs to be measured. At this point, I am not interested in dropping her. What I want to do is find a way to handle the hard no without appearing butthurt but also without rewarding her with attention. If that is not possible, I wish to otherwise deal with the hard no as smoothly as possible. I am at Dread Level 3 and employed successful Dread Level 4 last month with good results. But, I think that last week's problem makes withholding attention more challenging this time around because I think she is more likely to think that I am not showing up or not giving attention because of butthurt, which is not an acceptable strategy.

I have notifications turned on so I can reply to any follow-up questions. Thank you very much.