Having first hand experience, the alcoholic's financial and other consequences will continue until THAT PERSON stops drinking and gets help for the depression issues. First off, I encourage you to be sure to take care of yourself and your emotional state through this period. Find Al-Anon for yourself and attend meetings. You appear to be a caring person so please care for yourself. I want to state that my comments that follow are made because you mentioned the alcohol abuse. If you were ONLY talking about depression, my comments would be different. Please keep that in mind. I believe that once a person crosses the line with drinking, a different approach is called for. I believe a true friend would try and find the person and help get them medically stable. Give the person names of doctors/treatment centers to call. If the alcoholic didn't make the call for help and if the alcoholic is a danger to themself, I believe a true friend would work with the person's family and attorney to have the person committed for help...to a state facility, if needed. I don't believe a true friend would pay bills or stand in line for Social Security. Is this hard to do - absolutely yes. A friend who does these things without the alcoholic is a perfect example of someone who cares, but who by these methods of caring, is allowing the affected person to continue not facing the conseqences of drinking and not getting help. I believe a good friend has to realize that the alcholic has to help themself. I believe a true friend would do what they could to find the person and then encourage the alcoholic to get help. Initially, a good friend would identify resources for help. Without this step, nothing else (including finances) will matter. I know alot of recovering alcoholics with issues of depression. Many of them have absolutely been to the bottom...but have come back. I know doctors and lawyers who have lost their licenses for life. I know other professionals who will never work in their original field due to the distrust that resulted from their past drinking/non-attendance/dishonesty. I know people whose families would have nothing to do with them... in some cases for years and in others forever. Yet, because each of these people got to a point in their own life where they didn't want to keep experiencing negative consequences, they chose to get help. They chose to take the steps to get a life back. They alchoholic wanted it more than they wanted anything else. Struggling back isn't easy but it can be done. If you want, contact a treatment center near you and make an appt to go in and talk. You won't be turned away. As I also mentioned, go to Al-Anon for yourself. You will find from others who've been in your shoes as a concerned family member/friend the best way for you to handle the specifics of your situation. That said, an alcoholic who suffers financial and other consequences can make it back if they choose...

"Fortunately we never used my income for daily living expenses. We are, however, missing our ability to make capital purchases." If I may be so bold, what did you use your income for? Did you use it to establish college funds for the kids and nest eggs for you and your spouse? That's the smart way of doing it, and I know a few people who have managed to do that, even where I am, in Washington, DC. What amazes me is that I own a townhome in one of the more expensive area of the nation, and I manage it on a single salary. I'll admit that my ex-wife and I bought when the market was low, but after she and I split I kept the house. It was EXTREMELY tight at times, and I'm still carrying too much credit card debt that I'm working on erasing. There were some really tight times when I truly thought I was going to have to either get rid of the house or plunge into the bankruptcy option. Then my job situation changed for the MUCH MUCH better, I'm sitting on nearly $150,000 equity in my home (housing prices in my community have gone NUTS in the last 3 years), I'm socking 23% of my paycheck away into a 401K (the maximum I can go) plus more into other funds, and I'm still keeping ahead on all of my other payments. I use my credit cards too much, there's no doubt about that, but I keep it to a dull roar, and over the past two years have erased about $5,000 of $12,000 in credit card debt and moved much of it to cards that have interest rates at or below 10%. Living within one's means isn't difficult for most people. It takes discipline and EDUCATION on the wise use of credit. That's the kicker. The credit card companies that were approving everyone and their 1-year-old brother (the agressive marketing of revolving credit to college and even high school students should be illegal, or heavily curtailed in my opinion) largely have only themselves to blame for their losses no matter how much they whine about it. They weren't educating people about credit use, and it's hurt a LOT of people. One of the things that I did with Navy Federal was write member educational materials on credit use.

Arkansas is not a community property state. Bankruptcy is Federal law, but exemptions are state law. See a Bankruptcy attorney together, they will tell you honestly the effect, but make sure its an attorney and not some "paralegal" firm that will not be accurate. The "paralegal's" cannot go to court and often encourage people to lie and are often sanctioned by the court because of it. Since Bankruptcy is federal law, even in Los angeles there is only one Bankruptcy court (several judges) and attorneys don't want to get involved with somebody whose bankruptcy is going to be dismissed because you shouldn't have filed in the first place. Its a lot of extra work and the bankruptcy court regulates how much attorneys can charge more than any other field. We used to get cases where the husband wanted the wife to file or vice versa --evidently dreaming that it would not affect both of them. Good luck on that. The new Bankruptcy law was bought and paid for by the Credit Card companies so you can bet that getting rid of her debt without affecting you is most unlikely, as your income will be used in the calculations as to whether you can do a Chapter 7 or a Chapter 13 (which is a payback) You have a house,and have something to lose, so go talk with a Bk attorney; you need to know the value of your house and the amount of exemption that is allowed in your state. Myfask is correct that some companies who are hiring, will look at your credit rating--but they are looking for a large amount of debt. Employees who steal or embezzle usually owe a great deal of money. If you just filed BK, you don't need to steal because the credit card companies aren't calling you everyday or attempting to garnish your wages. Credit card companies are pretty aggressive trying to get you to pull more cards after the BK---your credit is not gone forever. Some companies even solicited the attorneys to recommend their special "after bankruptcy secured cards" Yes the legal fees for attorneys have gone up a lot--I got out of the field because the new laws make the attorney responsible for the client's errors. If they didn't know how much they owed how in the world would I know. Unless your wife practiced fraud; buying furniture, art, etc. and selling it, or ran up more debt than normal just before filing,credit card companies do not contest the BK. There is enough fraud out there that they don'thave to go after somebody who is a typical filer.

Hi pkguy, Being here in Canada about a stones throw from Nancy in Mich's house almost literally I was trying to read up on what/why this is happening in the US and not in Canada. It is a good comparison because both the US & Canada have about the same percentage of home ownership by population along with being the highest world percentages. From what I've read so far the stark difference is that in Canada mortage payments are not tax deductible but capital gains on the sale of your principle residence are not taxed. Whereas in the US, mortgage payments are tax deductible but you pay capital gains tax unless you buy another house of equal or greater value? So how does this make a difference, well in Canada since you are not gaining a yearly tax deduction on your mortage payments there is more of an incentive to pay your mortage off as quickly as possible while in the US a lender may prod a purchaser into taking out a larger mortage, buy a bigger house or de-incentive people to pay of their mortage quickly because they'll lose the deductions. Does that make sense? As quip pointed out, your assumptions are a bit out of date (OK, quite a bit... but big credit to you for strategic thinking!!!!) Today, in the U.S., you get a cap gains tax exemption for $250,000 single, $500,000 married... as often as every two years (which means if you are a magician and can buy a primary or second home and re-sell it every two years you can take up to a halg Mill tax free each round... can't beat that with a stick!) The U.S. government's subsidy of mortgage leverage certainly DOES muddy the water from financial simplicity. It can be a very powerful advantage to those who understand it (and how to marry it with tax-subsidized investment strategies,) but when misunderstood people can, and do, hang themselves by it. Do you think if people living in the high value areas of the US were able to sell their overpriced $800k 3 bedroom ranch they paid $50k for 25 years ago could walk away with $750k tax free and move to a much nicer $300k house in Michigan and stand to pocket $400k or so of cash they'd move? Yup... In fact, you have just described an often-maligned migration tendency of Californians to Washington, Oregon, Arizona & Nevada. Believe it or not, oldtimer native Washingtonians birtch & gripe about how "unaffordable" and "tax inflated" their neighborhoods have become because of "the damn Californians" who sell their 3 bed, 2 bath starter in Sacramento for a cool Mill, and bought (at full retail) a 4,000 square foot mini-mansion in Bellevue for half their proceeds. As always... the knife cuts both ways. Cheers, Dave Donhoff Strategic Equity & Mortgage Planner