Faxing paperwork to my attorney today
I know I am "supposed" to be embarassed and ashamed about this whole process (I feel bad because my husband definitely is, but I am not). However, what I feel is elated and like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I'll be the first to admit we made a couple of dumb decisions, but we also had a string of uncontrollable bad luck, and absolutely no safety net. It won't happen again, I learned our lessons and we can finally START OVER.
At first I was really scared about doing the bk, and to some extent I still am a little bit, but only in the sense of worrying that I don't have all the necessary paperwork or that I will have forgotten something. Now, I feel like shouting from the rooftops!
I feel guilty because my husband feels so awful about the whole thing, and he's really afraid of his friends and family finding out (which is pretty much inevitable since we are surrendering the house and he has a very close friend in the real estate business), but I just don't care. Anyone who wants to judge us should walk a mile in our shoes. I've worked 3 jobs at a time at periods over the last couple of years. We've paid back thousands of dollars in unsecured debts (probably more than we ever spent to begin with considering the outrageous interest rates, late payment and over limit fees etc), I tried to do debt management, etc. I've done what I could and I'm THRILLED that we will be able to file Chapter 7, have the slate wiped clean and be able to start over. We are relatively young, we have the rest of our lives to bounce back.
I'm just so happy and relieved. Tell me I'm not the only one!