OMG! You have my deepest sympathy. I hope things go well for you. My payments are really high compared to my income because I had to quit my job and help take care of my mom. I have lots of equity in my house, so even if I defaulted I could dump the house for less than half of it's current market value and still walk away with a good chunk of change.
When Obama unveiled the Making Home Affordable, I seemed to meet all of the criteria to have my payment lowered so I applied. To make a long story short, I have applied six different times. Each time they make me send a ton of info. I send everything they ask for and then I wait. Finally the call me and say that because so much time has passed I will need to update all of my info and send it again. After a few months of that, they either lose all the info and ask me to start over or they offer something like a temporary lower payment but at the end of six month I have to start making my regular payment and all of the shortage for the six months that they lowered my payment.
It has been a horrible nightmare. I could write a book about how incompetent they have been. I can call and ask if they need anything else and they will say no. Then in a few days I get a letter dated the same day that I called and they will be asking for pages and pages of new stuff.
My opinion is that they don't want to modify anyone's mortgage unless they are going to lose money. Since they would not lose money if I defaulted, and again, I never would because it would make more sense for me to dump the house super cheap, therefore, they want to keep getting the higher rate.
Because my income now is lower, I won't get approved to refinance by a different bank, so I am just screwed. It has been so hard for me to keep making my payments but I do it. If I did not have equity, they would probably be more willing to work with me because they know it would be easy for me to walk away and default.
I hope it goes better for you.