This is a true story.  Nothing has been fabricated.

Are You Like The Emu?

I am an animal lover.  So much so that I majored in Biology in college, focusing on animal behavior, and planned on working for a zoo.  After graduation, like many before me, and after me, it turned out that what I had planned on doing with my degree wasn’t really what I wanted to do after all.  Bummer.   I ended up working for the Humane Society in Colorado Springs.  I was an Animal Welfare Officer.  I guess you could say that I was a “glorified dog catcher” but it had some remarkably scary moments, and some that were downright amazing and intense.

Take for instance the day I was called out to the far eastern part of Colorado Springs for a “loose emu”.  There was never a dull day with this job, but this was by far the most unusual call I had.  Even though the city of Colorado Springs was nestled up against Pikes Peak, the eastern region of the city was flat, dusty, and quite dull.  Ranchers and farmers lived out there and I imagined that someone probably had an emu farm and one got away.  Another co-worker was assigned to this case with me.  We loaded up the horse trailer to our truck, made sure we had our lassos, blankets and plenty of gas as we drove about an hour east to find the runaway emu.

Sure enough, in the middle of the flat, dusty highway road stood an emu.  If you have never seen an emu, they look similar to an ostrich.  It is an odd animal to find yourself looking at in the middle of nowhere.  My co-worker and I looked at each other, both thinking, “how are we going to catch this giant bird?”  The emu was running up and down the highway in the grass between a barbed-wire fence and the highway; he was staying pretty much in a straight line, not running in a zigzag, just up the road for about 200 yards, and then back again.  I got on one end, and my co-worker on the other end.  We each took turns throwing our lasso around the emu’s neck.  No luck.  We decided we would try and throw a blanket on its head, and then perhaps it would just stand there and let us get it in the trailer.  If you have seen the movie Napoleon Dynamite, I can assure you that this emu had giant talons.  It was too dangerous to get too close to it, so we stood about 10 feet away and tried to throw the blanket on its head.  It was harder than we thought, and again, no luck.  We had been out there for about an hour and didn’t know what else to do.  That is when a man drove up to save the day.

This man pulled over and assured us that he could help us get this emu into our trailer.  We were so glad to have some help; this guy was so confident and looked like a cowboy who had maybe even done this a time or two.  Before we were able to discuss a game plan, this guy walked straight up to the emu.  We were immediately concerned and unsure of what this guy was going to do.  He reached out, grabbed the emu around its neck and was nearly mauled by the bird’s giant talon.  He let go, ran to his car while screaming at us, clearly upset, and asked while getting in his car, “what was that thing?”

The emu flipped out and shoved himself under the barbed-wire fence and ran away.  My co-worker and I just stared out in the distance as the emu became smaller and smaller.  “Wait; wait a second, wha…what’s that running towards the emu from the side?  Is that, no, wait; is that a herd of antelope?  In Colorado Springs?  Yes, it is.  Wow, they are running towards the emu. They aren’t slowing down.  They are going to run over the emu.  Yes, they are.”  And they did.  We watched the emu get crushed by a herd to antelope.  The emu never got back up.  We watched in horror as we just encountered the strangest moment, possibly ever.

I’ve told that story a few times to friends and family, but I really never thought much about applying the story to any real-life scenario; it’s just a strange story to tell.  But not too long ago Sam said that he thought I was like the emu during the first three years of our marriage while he was addicted to porn.  How so I inquired.  Emus, he explained, don’t belong in eastern Colorado, just as wives don’t belong in marriages with pornography addicts.  This poor animal was not where it belonged and whether the emu knew it or not, it was in grave danger.  Sam needed help, but we just didn’t have the tools to get him taken care of.  We tried, but unsuccessfully, to get Sam home, safe.  And then came the cowboy who thought he knew how to handle the situation and ended up making the situation worse.  This is like the counselor who told me to look at porn with Sam to spice our love life up, or the “Christian” sex books that encouraged me to have sex with Sam every 3 days because of his “sexual needs.”  And just as I narrowly escaped the counselors and help-books without too much damage, then came the weight of the culture, embodied as the herd of antelope, ready to crush me, to kill my spirit.

Oddly enough, this job at the Humane Society played a very real part in saving our marriage, and saving my spirit.  The Humane Society lost its bid with the city, so there were massive layoffs, and I was one who was let go.  We had one car and Sam would drop me off and pick me up each day since I had 12 hour shifts.  I was fired soon after he dropped me off, and Sam thought he had a full day to go to Adult bookstores.  I called him for 10 straight minutes to tell him to pick me up.  I knew what it meant when he didn’t answer his phone.  I was livid.  Icing on the cake was when I had to tell my now ex-boss that I needed a ride home.  I waited for 10 hours at home for Sam to come back home.  While I waited I decided right then that Sam needed help or we were done.  I gave Sam the ultimatum when he got home.  I fully expected him to leave.  I had begged him before to stop looking at the porn.  I pleaded, screamed and nothing worked.  Why would this be any different?  My spirit was nearly broken.  I had changed so much in the 2.5 years we had been married.  I was angry, bitter and that “spark” I once had as a happy, charming young lady was gone.  I hated my life, I hated my husband and I hated being married.  I was 23 years old and couldn’t imagine spending the rest of my life with Sam.  I couldn’t spend the rest of the year with him.  This was no bluff, I knew he was on the road to self-destruction, and possibly worse, taking me with him too.

Sam, terrified at losing his wife, opened up the phone book and found a 12-Step group for sexual addiction.  The leader of that group pointed us to only one of three Christian sexual addiction counseling centers in the nation, which happened to be right there in Colorado Springs.  We got into marriage counseling, Sam joined a recovery group and I joined a support group for wives. It was the beginning of the road to recovery and healing.  Although the road was not easy, with the addition of theology of the body, our marriage is not only better, but many of the major wounds within the marriage that were caused by Sam’s addiction have been redeemed.  In the last six years, Sam has viewed pornography only once, and masturbated once, which is considerably better than I ever thought he would be.  I don’t want to paint the picture that just like that we lived happily ever after.  With the help and support we were able to get, I am no longer like the emu, and pornography addiction no longer plagues our marriage.

Many women are finding that they are like the emu, living in fear, bombarded by unhealthy views of marriage and sex, finding either no help or toxic help, and feeling the weight of the damaged culture is telling women (and men) that porn is healthy and good. What can be done to help others get to a healing place, both in their marriage but also in their personal lives? Currently my husband and I are reading a book called Holy Sex by Dr. Greg Popcak. This book not only weaves in the beauty of theology of the body, but it also helps couples practically with understanding the difference between erotic sex and holy sex. Married couples need better intimacy and need to build up stronger families. Children need to see their parents happy and in love. Raising families with an ongoing discussion about the beauty of their bodies and the goodness of sex is one of the best antidotes to pornography.  Thanks to an explosion of TOB CDs, websites, books, study groups, and other resources about God’s plan for sex and marriage in the last 10 years, and many people who are being more open about the sexual healing that is taking place in their lives, there is tremendous hope for the future, and the pornographic revolution is almost over.

Everyone’s relationship is unique; however, there are similar trends that most couples experience, and therefore there are common myths that can be relevant for just about everyone. This doesn’t mean that every couple will experience all 18 myths, or that there aren’t other myths that may apply. These are, however, common myths that a couple may experience during the healing process.

I married my husband exactly one month before I turned 20.  No, I wasn’t crazy; I had found the man I thought God had put in my life for the rest of my life.  Mere months into the marriage, Sam began spending hours looking at internet pornography.  There aren’t words to describe the emotions that ran through me as I watched Sam continue to choose internet pornography instead of me.  I could not understand why he just wouldn’t stop.  I wasn’t crazy for wanting my husband to only look at me, to desire me, to think about me.