Thank you all for your comments, it’s really helpful to hear other people’s perspectives.

We are not planning to marry but we both want to have a relationship as in living together and going through life together. However this plan seem to move further and further away now.

The kids’ mother is likely on a narcissistic scale – she just doesn’t see anything wrong with what she’s doing, she refused to do any form of mediation or counselling for herself and any form of disloyalty from the children is punished by tantrums and threats. It’s heartbreaking to watch, also to see how the older girl starts behaving like mum to earn her love and the younger one is too scared to support dad. Any attempts from my bf to have a constructive conversation with his ex end up in verbal abuse from her. My bf’s strategy is to compensate all this for his kids by creating a calm & predictable environment at his home and not challenge the ex. Anita – I agree with you, I think it would be better for the girls long term to actually be introduced to my presence (they wouldn’t have to interact) otherwise the emotional blackmail and control will go forever and they will grow up with a skewed view of relationship and boundaries……but it’s easier for me to say so as I’m not their parent. I love my bf but I guess it may be down to me to decide at some point to stay or to go….it’s difficult and I’m dreading it as otherwise we have such a great relationship