My Husband Gave Up on Me and Our 8 Kids for a Younger Woman – But As I Got a 2 AM Voicemail From Him a Month Later, I Realized Karma Finally Caught Up With Him

Looking back now, the warning signs had been there for years.
My husband’s best friend, Mark, visited our home often. Most of the time he brought his daughter, Lily, along.

Lily had practically grown up in our house. She was the flower girl at our wedding. She was eight when our first child was born, and by the time our fourth arrived, she was old enough to babysit now and then.

Our kids adored her. As our family kept growing, Lily became almost like an older sister to them.

And somewhere along the line, Daniel began giving her a little too much attention. When she came over with Mark, the three of them would sit together on the back porch while the younger kids played outside.

Lily sometimes joined the games in the casual, playful way a 20-year-old might, but eventually Daniel would call her back to sit with them again.

Whenever Lily babysat, Daniel often invited her into his office to talk for a while after we returned home.

At the time, I told myself it was nothing. She was simply part of the furniture in our noisy, chaotic household.

Maybe that was part of the problem.

With eight kids running around, there was always a new problem to deal with. Someone was constantly losing a favorite shirt, a toy, or a pair of shoes. Sibling arguments were the soundtrack of our everyday life.

Daniel used to stand in the kitchen shaking his head. “It’s like living in a circus.”

I’d laugh. I thought he was joking.