This is a bit of a victim puke and also a search for perspective from others.

Last night, for the first time in three weeks, my wife didn’t immediately push me away when I kissed her. I told her I wanted to carry her upstairs and undress her. She affirmed she was interested but xyz had to be put away and abc done first. All reasonable and correct. We come upstairs, perform one more necessary house chore and then get into bed together. I move to kiss and run my hands over her body. I’m moving, not aggressively, but with purpose. She comments on how she just wants to lie next to me for a couple minutes first “to get in the mood”. The background here is that previously, our sex routine would often commence with her lying on me for 5 or more minutes as I lay there frustrated. The norm is that any moves by me are initially turned down. Eventually, I would persist to advance the moment in a passive aggressive way and she would get into it. This wasn what I was in the mood for last night. So I said no, I'm not in the mood to cuddle right now. She, predictably, became upset, telling me I wasn't "giving her what she needed". I responded with either you want me or you don’t. I’m not going to try and convice you to have sex with me. She became upset, tearful, and told me how mean I am for not giving her what I know she needs. I was able to hold back on the temptation to begin arguing. I answered with ok,I guess I’m just not in the mood tonight. We then got ready for bed and she left to sleep in the spare bedroom.

This morning, I'm trying to start over and play the nice card unless she gives me a reason not to.

So....thoughts on how I could have handled this better? I really do feel done with the mandatory pre sex cuddle. I like foreplay, even slow foreplay, but this really does feel like she’s trying to convince herself to get into this. I’m sure I’m more “aggressive” since it’s been 3 weeks since we last had sex (duty sex on my bd), and if we had had sex yesterday I prob would have been fine with playing it the way she wanted tonight.