Hi all I'm in a difficult and heart breaking circumstance. My partner and I have been together for nearly 4 years and he shares a 8 y.o daughter with his ex. I knew about this ex wife early on in our relationship and have slowly been learning more about it. I had to learn so much about covert narcissistic mother in the last 4 years to really understand what we are dealing with and how to support my partner. We have a great relationship and I have a beautiful relationship with his daughter and she referred to me as her step mother lovingly even though we are not married yet. As our relationship grew, the ex realised that we are serious and this has escalated her manipulative and malicious acts, both towards her own daughter and us. My partner has always pay her above and beyond child support including 4 years of extra money to support her. She's been bad mouthing us to his daughter and making her to guilty, confused and emotionally torn and has caused his daughter to refuse to come to us when it's his access time. My partner has always insisted on 50/50 access but the ex refused. So we only have her every weekend when she goes off to work at a stripper bar Friday and Saturday night often involving drugs and alcohol as we found out accidentally. We recently found ourselves at the receiving end of her malicious acts and invading our boundaries and being emotionally abusive towards the 8.yo. and us. We are seriously considering fighting for full custody but are worried that this will cause a lot of pain for the child during the battle. We have little means to stay in touch with his daughter during the week as the ex controls everything. I could really do with some advice and steps that we could take to protect us and the child. We tried calling places like Orange Door for support and found that they were dismissive of my partner from the fact that he's male and felt that his concerns and request for support was brushed off. We are located in Vic btw. Thank you all for your kindness. ... View more