My husband told my 16-year-old daughter to find somewhere else to live.

My husband looked at my 16-year-old daughter and said, “You need to find somewhere else to live because this is my house now.” I married my husband two years ago after dating him for three years. He knew from the beginning that I had a daughter from my first marriage. Her name is Lily and she was 13 when we started dating and 14 when he proposed.

He always said he loved her like his own. He said he couldn’t wait to be a real family. He said all the right things and I believed every word because I wanted to believe them. My first husband left when Lily was 4 years old and I’d been raising her alone ever since. The idea of having a partner who wanted to be part of our little family felt like a dream come true.

We got married in a small ceremony at a vineyard and Lily was my maid of honor. She gave a toast about how happy she was that her mom finally found someone who made her smile again. My husband cried during her speech. I thought those tears were real. After the wedding, my husband moved into the house I’d owned for 12 years.

It was the house where I’d raised Lily and the house my grandmother had left me when she passed away. My husband didn’t contribute to the mortgage because there was no mortgage. He didn’t pay property taxes because I handled those. He paid for groceries sometimes and covered the cable bill and acted like that made us equal partners in the household.

I didn’t mind because I loved him and I thought we were building a life together. The problem started small. He’d complain that Lily was too loud when she had friends over. He’d say she took too long in the bathroom in the mornings. He’d mentioned that teenagers ate too much food and that the grocery bill had gone up since he moved in.

I reminded him that Lily had lived here her whole life and that she wasn’t going anywhere. He’d nod and say he understood and then bring it up again a week later. When Lily turned 15, he started pushing harder. He said she was old enough to get a job and pay for her own things. I said she was a sophomore in high school and her job was to focus on her grades.