Persuades wife to pay attention to Dennis (8)
I believe the answer is:
wheedles
'persuades' is the definition.
(wheedling is a kind of persuading)
'wife to pay attention to dennis' is the wordplay.
'wife' becomes 'w' (abbreviation).
'to pay attention to' becomes 'heed' (eg to heed a warning is to pay attention to it).
'dennis' becomes 'les' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'w'+'heed'+'les'='WHEEDLES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for wheedles that I've seen before include "Persuades by coaxing" , "is cajoling" , "uses sweet talk" .)