My partner loves the cats more than me. Advice please.

It's not really a jealousy thing because he doesn't spend more time with them or anything like that, it's things he says and the way he acts. For example if I say something about them and he thinks I am being critical of them he will give me a snappy answer and swear at me. In addition to this, I have Contamination OCD and I find it hard to have outside cats that come in, so I ask things like to shut the kitchen door so that they don't go on the worktops - but he often doesn't. I say to him about it and he just says the cats were asleep, and I say that isn't the point because cats can sneak up on you. He has done it before and one of them managed to get past him in the kitchen and went to sleep on the clean washing in the utility room.
We keep having arguments about it because I feel he should have more love and respect for me than the cats, I could understand if we were just dating and he had them longer, but he was with me first. We have lived together for almost 14 years, which is twice the length of how long we've had the eldest. He calls me his wife and says he wants to be with me forever - so shouldn't I mean more to him? Don't get me wrong, of course you should love pets (I have a pet galah I love but nowhere close to how I feel about my partner), but I can't understand loving a pet more than a partner of that long. It may sound silly but the thought of him loving them more kills me inside as I love him more than life and I thought he felt the same. Am I in the wrong?