I'm in deep and trying to figure out options

[cdmosaic]

I'm in debt - almost $200k. $80k in personal credit cards, and the rest is business debt. I own a small business LLC in California. I'm 60F, married and my spouse and I keep most of our finances separate except for our mortgage and a joint checking and savings account. The short story is my business was struggling for about 16 months and while I tried to right the ship I racked up a tremendous amount of debt. I couldn't pay myself so I used credit cards to pay my portion of our joint expenses. And the business debt went to marketing and attempting to earn revenue. In August of last year, a month-long bout of COVID put paid to any fantasy I had that I could keep afloat as for 2 months I had virtually no business. The last two months are the first since then that the business has been doing better and on that front things are looking up. But I'm in default on all my credit cards and business loans. I don't see any option other than bankruptcy. I'd like to keep the business open as it can earn money if I can operate it more fiscally responsibly so I've discussed the option of a personal Chp 7 and including all the business debts for which I will be personally liable if the business fails. The problem is my spouse earns too much for me to pass the means test. BTW - I would file bankruptcy alone without my spouse. Not sure how Chp 13 would work in my situation. On a personal note my spouse is furious with me and understandably so, and I'm just trying to figure out how to navigate all this and be proactive without letting depression get the best of me. Thoughts, advice, questions. TIA.

[shipo]

Ugh, so sorry about your situation; my wife and I were both in your shoes eleven to twelve years ago; her business, also an LLC was burning through about $5,000 per month over and above whatever it brought in, and then I found out my (now former) business partner had launched a new niche business and racked up over a quarter of a million of debt in my name. Our financial stress got so bad we separated, she filed Chapter 7 and I filed a Chapter 13, and then, a year later we started talking about getting back together.

With the above said, I can give you no better advice than to talk to four or five attorneys and get a feel four your options.

[cdmosaic]

Thanks for the response. Sadly, it helps to know others have gone through this and come through the other side. I've spoken to 3 attorneys so far, one I liked, but I'll take that advice and find a few more. My spouse and I have brought up the idea of legal separation. Currently, she is barely speaking to me so I guess we shall see where that all goes.

[shipo]

Hang in there cdmosaic, it can get better. As of late May 2014 she was adamant about divorcing me and let me know she'd had her attorney draw up the paperwork; the timeline was for us to be divorced by late June of that year. I drove our son's car down to NAS Pensacola for him around Memorial Day and gave him the bad news; the next day he and I were out having dinner when she called; she'd just left her attorney's office and was in tears, "I can't do it; would you consider getting back together?"

Here we are now in 2024 looking to buy a new home.