They say everyone leads a double life in some way. Mine just happens to be between the pulpit and the shadows of my own sexual mind.

I’m a church leader—a deacon, a small group teacher, a man people trust to speak truth and wisdom on Sunday mornings. I’m also a happily married man. We hold hands in public. We laugh at dinner. We’ve raised a family together. But intimacy… real physical intimacy… well, that stopped a long time ago. These days, holding hands is the most affection we share.

When we first married, she was incredibly sexual—open, curious, and confident. She would tell me stories about the men she had been with before we married. Most husbands might’ve felt jealousy or resentment, but not me. I was fascinated. Turned on, even. I wanted every detail—where, how, what she wore, how it felt, what the guy said. The wilder the story, the more it excited me. It felt like she was letting me into a secret world she had lived in before me, and I loved being trusted with it.

Over time, things changed. She became less interested in sex. More reserved. More private. The stories stopped. The spontaneity faded. And now, it’s not just that we don’t have sex—it’s that she doesn’t want to talk about it at all. It’s like that part of her shut down. For me, though, my desires never went away. I still get aroused. I still fantasize. I still masturbate. I still need.

That’s where the double life begins.

Because on Sunday mornings, I’m the guy praying over people. But on Saturday nights, I might be slipping on a pair of pantyhose under my jeans, not because I want to be someone else, but because that kink has always turned me on. I might be watching porn, writing out my fantasies, or reading stories that let me escape. I might be thinking about one of the women at church—not in a predatory way—but just wondering… did she masturbate this morning before coming to service? Does her husband satisfy her? Does she ever wonder about other lives she could be living? Does she ever feel alone like I do?

I know I’m not the only one.

The statistics on masturbation alone prove that. With the number of people who admit to masturbating weekly or even daily, there have to be plenty of churchgoers doing the same—men and women. And yet, we pretend it’s something that doesn’t happen. We never talk about it. And so, we hide. We live in our heads. We keep secrets.

I remember once, while leading a small group, one of the women—kind, reserved, married—stood beside me as we waited for coffee and mentioned, almost offhandedly, that her husband hadn’t touched her in months. She said it like a confession, but without shame. She said she had needs, and she had to take care of them herself.

She wasn’t flirting. She wasn’t making a move. It wasn’t an invitation. It was just a moment of quiet vulnerability. And for me, it was powerful. It was human. It was real.

That’s the thing—so many of us are living these inner lives. Private sexual lives. Unspoken needs. Kinks we’re afraid to mention. Desires we’re told to suppress. We’re parents, spouses, and church leaders… but we’re also bodies and fantasies and urges.

It’s not about cheating. I’ve never been unfaithful to my wife. I don’t want another relationship. I just want to be honest about what I feel. And I want others to know they’re not alone.

So this is my confession: I’m a church man who still has a strong sex drive. A man who still masturbates. A man who remembers every story his wife once told him and still uses them for arousal. A man who sometimes wears pantyhose. A man who imagines the private thoughts of others not to judge them, but to feel a little less alone.

I know I’m not the only one. You don’t have to be either.