For me...when my H makes an "honest" attempt at doing something...even if it's just to make me happy, I can tell the difference...there's effort put into it. When he's just showing up because he thinks he has to....I can also tell the difference, that's when things become mechanical and he makes no real attempt to get into what he's doing.
I don't question what my H's intentions are at the actual time he's doing things. I go off of the feeling "I" have at the time, or shortly thereafter...and that is often based off of his actions (or lack thereof).
Many people are correct that happiness does come from within ourselves...I mean, I do choose to view my H's attempts as his attempts to show me he loves me afterall....I don't concentrate on what his motive is behind the attempt....or assume he's doing it just because of xyz. Really, it doesn't matter to me "why" he does it....what matters to me is the effort he actually puts into it.
What works....or worked for me in the past is to really concentrate on some of those things that you know your W already does that shows her love for you. What is the LL that she already does speak? For me, my H is an Acts of Service guy.....so it's the things he's constantly doing around the house, or the attempts to buy me things he thinks I want. Now, Acts of Service is not by any means my LL, it's his totally. But I've learned to recognize that when he does certain things he's showing his love for me...in his way. I try to validate that and recognize it (recognizing it sometimes takes a bit of work).
It's up to me to communicate to him how to effectively speak my Love Language...so that means I have to clearly communicate specific things that he can do and then agree to recognize his efforts when he does these things. I have even given him a list of things that he can do that I will recognize and explained he doesn't have to do all of these things all of the time, but any (or all) of the things I've listed are things that I will automatically read from him as being loved/wanted/desired...whatever.
I need to run for now...I'll try to post more in a bit.
