I actually do use iambic pentameter. Or, at least I try to; sometimes it’s a little forced. But generally, I try to stick as close to the standard Shakespearean sonnet as possible, meaning I use iambic pentameter and an a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g rhyme scheme.

I sympathize with your difficulty recognizing meter: it took me quite a long time to get all the names down. What really helped me was a little poem one of my professors gave the class. Each line is written, more or less, in the meter it names:

Trochee trips from long to short, from long to long in solemn sort.
Slow spondee stalks, strong foot, yet ill able
Ever to catch up with dactyl’s trisyllable.
Iambics march from short to long;
With a leap and a bound, swift anapests throng.