I think Love Languages is KEY here, as others have noted. If you're THINKING you're putting your wife first, but you're not doing it in HER primary LL, then you'd be shocked to find out where SHE thinks she ranks on your priority list.
That all being said, I do believe in the John Rosemond concept of the marriage being at the center of the household. In far too many American homes (including mine), the CHILDREN are at the center, and it is Rosemond's observation that too many American women are, in fact, more "married" to their children than they are to their husbands. I think women are under enormous pressures to be this "supermom" that the media -- and even their own friends and relatives -- portray, and it's an impossible standard to live up to.
It also leaves no time left for the husband.
We have four children, between the ages of 8 and 17, plus six pets, and there is simply not enough "Mary" to go around to all of us. If the marriage (or God and THEN the marriage) isn't treated as the top priority, and all the attention is centered around the children, then I (and Rosemond) believe the marriage suffers.
Another analogy is that of the oxygen mask on the airplane. If you don't take care of YOURSELF, and your marriage, first, you can't possibly help your CHILDREN.
