I’m realizing that something that happened to me while dating may have been sexual assault, and I’m struggling with the memories coming back

A few years ago, I met a guy on Tinder and I really liked him. I thought he was handsome and I hoped we would become boyfriend and girlfriend.

On one date, we were alone in a movie theater. He kept trying to make advances toward me, and I kept moving away because I felt uncomfortable.

On another date, he told me he felt like I wasn’t into him. I explained that I did like him, but I just wasn’t ready to do anything sexual.

Instead of respecting that, he told me that maybe I was “asexual” and that something was wrong with me because I didn’t have sexual feelings. He then lifted my shirt and sucked on my breast without my consent. He also pressured me into touching his penis and pointed out that I wasn’t reacting.

I left feeling disgusted, ashamed, and confused. At the time, I didn’t fully understand what had happened, and I tried very hard to forget about it. I didn’t have a long history with relationships or dating so I convinced myself that this is normal with relationships.

Recently, my husband mentioned this person while we were talking about past relationships, and it brought all of those memories back. I realized that I don’t see this as a normal dating experience because I did not consent to what happened. When he mentioned it I weakly said “no…. that doesn’t count”

I have only told my husband and one close friend. I never told my parents, family, or other friends. I’m posting here because I want to know if others have experienced something similar and how you coped with realizing later that what happened was sexual assault. I worked so hard to dig this far away to not think about and it bringing brought up again I don’t know how to handle it. I so badly wanted to forget about it.