We didn't know where to start, so we decided to get a bankruptcy overview.  We needed to learn everything we could about the process.  We wanted to do this before going to the lawyers.  We wanted to have some knowledge about the process.  There is plenty of information about bankruptcy on line and in books and with government agencies. It was important to us that we know the right choice to make.  Our goal is to keep the house and the car and some personal items.  This shouldn't be too hard.  We did some reading and decided on the chapter filling that we wanted to do.  The next step is to go to the lawyer and see if he agrees.  When we went we found out that we had accessed our situation correctly, and that we had decided correctly on the right filing.  All that remained to do was to get it done and get started on a new life.  Both of us were disappointed of course by having to do this, but we really had no choice.  We wanted to cut our losses and we want to pay back the people we owe.  It's only fair. It might take the next 15 years to do it, but we promised that we would pay back everybody we owed.