WASHINGTON — Under fire for using taxpayer money to settle a sexual misconduct complaint from a former aide, Representative Patrick Meehan, Republican of Pennsylvania, said Tuesday that the woman “specifically invited” his intimate communications, and that he was emotionally wounded when she filed a complaint against him.

Mr. Meehan denied crossing the line into impropriety, but said in an interview that when the woman told him last year that she had started a relationship with someone outside the office, he “didn’t respond to it as well as I would like to have.”

He said he believed his attempt to make amends — a handwritten letter in which he called her “a complete partner to me” — was meant to be a sign of respect.

“That I would find later that that was not something that she was comfortable with, really hurts me,” Mr. Meehan said. “This was a person who specifically invited communication with me so that she would be able to have the ability to be there for me.”