– Jacob & Christie’s Love Factor Story
From the outside, our life looked full and functional. We lived on Spokane’s South Hill, had two beautiful kids (Hunter, our energetic 8-year-old who loves building anything with wheels, and Megan, our sweet 5-year-old who never met a doll she didn’t immediately nurture). We went to church. We believed in God. We worked hard. We were doing *all the right things*.
But inside our marriage, something was quietly unraveling.
My husband Jacob is an engineer and I am a surgical tech. Between us, we worked two full time jobs each… long shifts, early mornings, late nights, rotating schedules, constant pressure. Life became a relay race of drop-offs, pick-ups, homework, dinners eaten separately, and collapsing into bed exhausted. Conversations turned into logistics. Connection turned into coordination. Love became efficient… but distant.
We weren’t fighting constantly. In some ways, that made it worse. We were polite, respectful, and functional. But we were lonely – lonely in the same house.
The weight of responsibility pressed in on us from every side; financial stress, parenting fatigue, and emotional burnout. We began to feel misunderstood, unseen, and unprioritized. Small disappointments piled up and our unspoken expectations turned into quiet resentment. We prayed, but often separately. We worshiped, but rarely together at home. Somewhere along the way, our hearts stopped meeting, even though our lives were still running side by side.
There was a moment that we we’ll never forget… when we both realized we were surviving, not thriving. We loved each other deeply, but love alone didn’t seem to be enough anymore… and that realization was terrifying.
In humility, honestly, and desperation—we reached out for help and called LF3 Love Factor.
What we didn’t expect was that the work we began would not just repair our marriage, but redeem and upgrade it.
Through the process, we were forced to slow down and finally listen… not just to words, but to each other’s hearts. We learned how differently we were wired, how differently we experienced stress, love, and connection. We uncovered wounds we didn’t realize were still shaping how we showed up. We learned how to fight for each other instead of against each other…or worse, withdrawing into silence.
For the first time in years, we felt truly known.
Faith stopped being something we checked off on Sundays and became something we lived out together again. We remembered that God wasn’t just interested in keeping our marriage intact… He was inviting us into something deeper. Scripture came alive in new ways as we learned what it meant to “carry one another’s burdens” and to love not just sacrificially, but intentionally. We began praying together again, not polished prayers, but honest ones.
Something shifted.
Our home changed. Our kids noticed. Hunter became more relaxed. Megan became more secure. Laughter returned and it wasn’t forced, but free. We weren’t just better parents; we were a healthier team.
Today, our marriage has a depth we didn’t even know was possible. We still work hard. Yes, we’re still busy. Life is still real. But now we’re connected at the heart level. We communicate with clarity. We approach challenges as partners. We see each other, not as problems to fix, but as people to cherish.
Looking back, we’re grateful we didn’t wait until everything was broken to ask for help. God used that step of faith to restore what was fading and to build something stronger than what we had before.
If there’s one thing we want others to know, it’s this: struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. It often means you’re human. Hope isn’t found in pretending everything is fine… it’s found in courage, humility, and taking the next right step.
Our marriage isn’t just healed. It’s alive.
