How can I help my daughter after leaving her dad? Will she be ok?

I need advice and wisdom.

I left my boyfriend of 9 years for the last time yesterday. We’ve been off and on our whole relationship and it’s been very toxic, emotionally and mentally abusive. We’ve tried counseling, I tried giving him chance after chance to change but it would always go back to the same thing. He would belittle me, call me names, then love bomb and bread crumb me as soon as I started to pull away.

I finally realized things would never get better and my daughter didn’t deserve to live in a toxic environment and I wanted to be a better example for her.

Yesterday when she and I were leaving, he pulled her into the bedroom and says “mommy is leaving and breaking up our family and she wants to take you. Mommy has lied to everyone about daddy, mommy lies to you, mommy wants to take you away from me.” I tried to tell him she’s 5 and he shouldn’t be talking to her like that and he just kept saying “she deserves to know and choose if she goes with you or not.” And now he’s been threatening to fight me for custody.

I do everything for my daughter. All of the dr appts alone, signing her up for school, extracurriculars… everything. He doesn’t do anything. It breaks my heart that he said that to her to manipulate the situation. I feel like it’s going to scar her.

What can I do to help her? How do I navigate this? I’m so sad and lost right now.

Signed,

A tired mama