Help W/ converting ch13 to ch 7

Illinois

I have been in a chapter 13 for the past 2 years, I have a few secured loans in the Chapter 13, such as … Car loan, secured interest in a credit card, and I also have a tax penalty listed as priority. My situation is that I can no longer afford to pay the chapter 13 and would like to convert to a chapter 7. My lawyer told me in the beginning, that if I convert I would loose my car. I have no problem with losing the car that I owe money on, but I recently got married and we were given a car by my mother in law. Will I loose the car that we were given? Also will my wife have to be included in the chapter 7 case, since none of these debts were hers? I also have a lot of electronics that I would not like to lose; will I be able to keep them? I don’t owe any money on these items; they were bought either with cash or already paid off. And lastly I don’t really have the money to pay for a chapter 7 case, so I was told that I could just stop paying on my chapter 13 and it would automatically convert to a chapter 7, in the meantime the money I would save by not paying the chapter 13 could be used to pay some of the cost of the chapter 7 case; can I do this, is it legal and is it true that the case would convert to a chapter 7 if I stop making payments? Thanks for all of your help.

[bigun]

You may convert a 13 to a 7 but, it is not done automatically. As to the rest of your question, I'd stop making the 13 payments and use the money to see a lawyer about the mechanics of a 7.