I(42F) got into the weirdest argument with my boyfriend (46M) this morning and honestly I'm still confused. We've been together for about two and a half years and recently sex has been non-existent. It's been a strong point of contention for me but I know he's going through a lot of s*** right now so I try not to bring it up too much or to make him feel bad.
I'm pretty obsessed with horror movies and have never once had a bad dream from one. Last night we watched a movie that was triggering and I woke up in a weird headspace. He asked me how I slept and I told him that I had weird dreams. We cuddled for about 20 minutes then I rolled over on my side and grabbed my phone to check all the stuff that I checked first thing in the morning. After about another 15 minutes he started to scoot towards me, pulled the blanket out from in between us and scooted over pressing his crotch into my butt. He started to rub my shoulder and the inner part of my thigh. It's the universal thing that men do to feel out whether their partner wants sex in the morning or not. I could also feel the sexual tension. It made me feel really good. He hadn't done anything like that in a really long time but I could not get out of my headspace so I told him not this morning, really hoping that we would have sex later today. Then for some reason he started aggressively rubbing my head which was annoying so I snapped at him. I have a shaved head and he is always touching it and sometimes it gets to be too much.
He went to go make coffee and when he brought some into the bedroom I apologized for snapping at him and thanked him for stopping when I told him I wasn't in the mood. He told me he didn't know what I was talking about. I said when you were feeling out whether I wanted to have sex this morning or not and I asked you to stop and you did right away. He said that he never did that. We were both fully awake and had been for some time. I told him I wasn't upset that's why I was thinking him that I really wanted to have sex with him but I couldn't get out of my headspace. He denied it again. He kept saying that he never attempted to have sex with me, that he wasn't even laying that close to me, and that he just rubbed my back a little.
No matter how many times I told him that his attempt to have sex with me this morning was a good thing and then I wanted it just not at that moment he denied even trying. We argued for over an hour and then I asked him to leave to go back to his house because I can't understand why he's denying something that I physically felt and also something that I'm not even upset about. I feel like he's gaslighting me and he's never done anything like this before.
Why would he be denying this when I said there was nothing wrong with it? How do I bring this up again later in a way that I won't get the same aggressive denial?
TL;DR: I was excited about my boyfriend's attempt to have sex with me this morning because it's been a long time but I wasn't in the mood. Now he is denying that he attempted at all.