When Melissa and I were first married we bought a nice little home in Boulder, CO. The home was ours, built on dreams of what our new life together would be.

When we had Sara we decided that Melissa would stay at home and raise our children. While it was financially challenging at times, we felt that the benefit to our children was well worth the sacrifice. Before Sophia was born we moved out of our marital house into a larger home. After the move, I had to work and Melissa was busy with Sara and setting up the new house.

After some time, I noticed that weekends were becoming increasingly difficult for me. I was starting to feel like an outsider in my own house. How could that be that I am feeling like this? How could I feel so separated from my family and from my house?

This issue was difficult to recognize and even more difficult to articulate to Melissa. So in common fashion I didn’t say anything until I was angry and upset about it; that’s when it all came together for me. What I realized at that moment is that during the day when I was at work they had routines, experiences, trials/tribulations and friends together and that they were creating their own family subculture. When I come home from work, I am entering a culture which I had very little influence in creating.

This has to be a common occurrence because of the huge number of TV shows where the dopy dad comes home and can’t do anything right; effectively he is anti-social in the family subculture. It’s funny on TV, not so funny when it’s in your own house.

As I tried to put this into perspective, I remembered before we had children, Melissa would help me in the office with some administrative tasks. She didn’t know where the supplies were, she didn’t know anything about finding data our network and didn’t have a good knowledge about what needed to be done. Essentially she was a visitor into my daytime work culture.

While the circumstances are quite different between my work culture and my family’s home subculture, the parallel was drawn of being a visitor into an unfamiliar culture. Without recognizing what was happening, it would have been very easy for me to withdraw and become elusive from my family; but that’s just not acceptable to me.

To this day, I’m constantly working to walk the fine line between respecting and understanding the subculture that Melissa and the girls have built and weighing in on what my beliefs and ideals are for my family. I will not be the dopy, anti-social father from TV, but I will also not be a tyrannical visitor to my family’s subculture. A balancing act between respect for others and self-respect is the righteous path.