I hope this is the right place to vent.

I have a 2.5 year old beautiful little girl. For the past several months, she has been spending 3 nights here and 4 nights with her mom. Well, all that stopped and I have not been able to see my daughter for the past 3-4 weeks.

According to my ex-spouse, I muted FaceTime. She had FaceTimed around 9:30pm, which is her bedtime, so my daughter wasn't as responsive/acting drowsy.

Ex-spouse accused me of muting FaceTime and demanded that I drop my daughter off at her place. It was nearly 10PM so I refused. She took offense to that and completely broke our co-parenting agreement.

Since then, she has taken full control.

Backstory: I left her because of domestic violence. Everything from punching my nose, breaking glass, throwing whatever is nearest at me, I have endured it all (for nearly 6 years). I was so patient with her, even broke down in front of her during a fight. She dismissed my plea to stop cursing/throwing/hitting me in front of my daughter. In fact, she says she curses intentionally because of how much it bothers me. Well, it is a problem when a little toddler is listening to her mom verbally vomit on me.

My last straw was when I made one last stop to pick up my things. She casually asked, "How do I know you won't rape her". The most shocking part of it all was she was serious and started tearing up. I didn't know how to respond to that. I didn't react, just left out of pure disgust. I have been living in my own place for several months, fully equipped to have my daughter play/eat/sleep, but my ex-spouse took that all away from me.

My mom is begging me to seek out legal help. I told her let's wait, this is my last resort and I hate to waste money if things can be mediated without legal intervention.

Is this a lose/lose situation if I seek out legal assistance to obtain custody? She has a history of violence with me (started recording for my own safety several years ago), so I have a lot of evidence to support my claims of being physically abused. I'm just worried hearing all the horror stories of men losing custody/visitation due to false claims made by the women to sabotage any chance of fair judgement.

Any other guys with similar stories? Outcome?