Emancipation When Your Parents are Divorced

My question involves child abuse or neglect in the State of: Connecticut

Hi, I'm 16 and I am looking for information about emancipation. My parents are divorced and I live with my mom. I am an only child. My parents have joint custody of me but my dad lves in another state so I don't see him often. He wants to move up here with me so I can get away from my mom and live with him, because he sees that it isn't healthy for me to be living with my mom. He isn't able to move up here right now for financial reasons and I can't move until I graduate high school in a year and a half. My mom has been diagnosed with bipolar and borderline personality disorder and has not been receiving treatment since 2010, so for 7 years.

She is extremely emotionally abusive. She has never laid a hand on me, although sometimes she threatens violence when she has one of her episodes. It has gotten to the point where when I hear footsteps coming towards my room I get scared because I know she is going to start screaming at me. I have a job and I am an honor roll student taking AP courses, so I have a good head on my shoulders and I am mature for my age. Even though I know emancipation is my best chance at having a better life, I don't want to hurt my mom.

Even though she hurts me so much every day with her mood swings and her emotional abuse, I still love her and care for her. I know it would destroy her inside for me to leave her, but I have to put myself first for once. She tells me that no one is there for me except her, and if I lose her no one will be there for me. Inside, I know that's not true, I have a great support network of people at my school, family, and friends, but I am also afraid of being alone. I don't want to hurt her. I'm all she has, but I know this will only end up escalating to a point where one of us gets hurt and I want to stop it before it gets to that. I feel like emancipation is the only way to do so. Please help me.

Read the stickied threads.

You have mentioned nothing about your ability to support yourself or live independently. If your concern is that you are being abused, talk to a counselor at school or contact protective services yourself, and talk to your father about whether he should be petitioning to modify custody -- but given that he can't move to you, you would need to be willing to move to his state.

Look at the dozens of other threads about emancipation on here and you will get an answer.

If you are being abused call the police or CPS or talk to your dad or a trusted adult. You are not going to get emancipated. Emancipation is not to escape abuse.

If your dad wants sole custody of you he needs to go to court and file for it.

While very well written, you mention nothing in your post that would qualify you for emancipation. If you are being abused you should contact the police or CPS. Or your father should step in and file for custody.

Emancipation is not a path to a better life.

Do you realize that to successfully emancipate, you need to have proof that will convince a judge that you, all by yourself, alone and unassisted, are able to pay 100% of your own expenses? That without help from Dad, or Aunt Susan, or your best friend's family, or your boyfriend/girlfriend, or any other person save yourself, you are paying 100% of your rent, your utilities, food, clothing, insurance, medical care, transportation, staples, school fees and supplies, and all the other incidentals of life? It does not mean "divorcing" your mom and going to live with your dad; it means that you are living on your own and managing ALL of your own financial affairs, while still going to school and getting better than average grades.

Does that sound like fun to you?

There may well be answers for you, but that answer is not emancipation.

(and of course, that's assuming that your state will emancipate a minor in the first place. Not all states do.)

Quote:

---

Quoting cbg

---

Emancipation is not a path to a better life.

Do you realize that to successfully emancipate, you need to have proof that will convince a judge that you, all by yourself, alone and unassisted, are able to pay 100% of your own expenses? That without help from Dad, or Aunt Susan, or your best friend's family, or your boyfriend/girlfriend, or any other person save yourself, you are paying 100% of your rent, your utilities, food, clothing, insurance, medical care, transportation, staples, school fees and supplies, and all the other incidentals of life? It does not mean "divorcing" your mom and going to live with your dad; it means that you are living on your own and managing ALL of your own financial affairs, while still going to school and getting better than average grades.

Does that sound like fun to you?

There may well be answers for you, but that answer is not emancipation.

(and of course, that's assuming that your state will emancipate a minor in the first place. Not all states do.)

---

Or at least not unless very extraordinary circumstances exist. A 17 year old famous actor/actress who was known for having a good head on his/her shoulders, whose parents died suddenly in a car crash might have a fighting chance of getting emancipated...someone like you really does not have that chance.