*Deep Breath*

Today I will do something that I have never done before.  Something that, quite frankly, goes against everything that I have always believed in. 

I am going to call our mortgage company and stop paying our mortgage.  Not on the house that we live in, but in the house that we used to live in.  The house that, before the real estate market tanked, we always thought of as part of our retirement fund and our children's college fund.  I cannot fathom not paying our obligation, however the bottom line is that we can't afford to make those payments.  We've tried to talk with the mortgage company and to modify the mortgage.  Since we don't live in the house, we can't modify our mortgage.  Mortgage modifications are only for primary residences.  They don't care that we've tried to sell it.  They don't care that our mortgage payments are $500 per month MORE than we're getting in rent.

We're just out of options on it.  I am extremely conflicted about what we're about to do.  We've crunched the numbers every way we can imagine.  We've looked at the market, our checking account, and the money that we have coming in each month.  There's just no way to do it.