Have you tried showing her without telling her?

I'm talking about stuff like when you're out in public, grabbing her and kissing her for real, or walking up to her when she's just doing something and touching her face and admiring all her features, more attention to her face and eyes, not necessarily always ending with a kiss, but making eye contact and playing with her hair. Hell, even smelling her. But without saying anything, just really admiring her in the moment and reaching out to show it. The sort of cheesy things they do in romance shows.

I'm only saying this because the time in my life when I felt absolutely the most sexy was when I was with a guy in college who would do all of these things. It seemed like he couldn't get enough of simply admiring my beauty. Had sex a lot back then.

Flash forward to today, now currently a LL and that was all I wanted my partner to do to me. Instead the only thing I got was him honking my boobs and telling me I'm pretty, but no real action behind the words. Made me feel really bad about myself honestly. I stopped believing him when he called me pretty, especially after other issues arose. Words mean nothing if you feel like the end goal is sex, or if there aren't genuine actions to back it up.

Idk if this would help but figured I'd give my 2¢ as a girl in the same position as your wife