more than the behaviors, patience is a state of being, a state of mind and one of contentment. it's an attitude where you're not just "coping" with the fact that what you are waiting for hasn't come, but that you fully accept that it is not now and may or may not be for some time. What you do, in your daily activities will follow suit when you first actually begin to learn patience.

If you're anxious and anticipating change still and just distracting yourself by coping mechanisms, dissociation and detachment, you are 100% right, it's not patience, it's distraction from impatience. You're still in the state of mind where you wish something would happen now but ignoring and distracting yourself from the idea so it doesn't bother you.

So it's not exactly in the acts that will move you to patience, but in the mind alone and in your heart. If you love your spouse, you will work on accepting them as they are, and where they are at the time and when you do, all else will fall into place. That does not mean that everything they do is ok or fun, but there is a level of acceptance of them being, just like you, fallible and full of flaws...