And people wonder why I am terrified to marry again...

The other night I met a guy friend of mine for drinks, and we started talking about work, relationships, and money. He told me something quite disturbing.

My friend is a very handsome, educated guy who has never been married. He a successful 30-something with a burning desire to excel in business and make a ton of money, and he is well on his way. And that's what worries me.

Apparently, he had been talking with the head of his company — a financially successful man who has been through like four or five marriages — who advised him that he should "get the details out of the way" and then really focus on his career. In other words, my friend should "get a wife and give her a couple of kids" and then he can really focus on his career.

Hello! What century are we living in?! Get married and "give her a couple of kids"? (As if without children she would have nothing better to do or offer?) What happened to, Find someone you love and raise a family with together?

I have never met my friend's boss, but as a woman I find that mentality very disrespectful (perhaps that's why he has been divorced several times).

What scares me is that I'm afraid this idea is not as rare as I'd like to think, given today's materialistic and greedy society. Men want it ALL and will do whatever it takes to get it.

It's not the first time I have seen them since my divorce last March, but it's the first time that they have made the trip to the East Coast to visit. It will also be the first time they will see my apartment.

Last time they traveled over, I was living in a house, so they had their own bedroom and own bathroom. Going from that to a small one-bedroom apartment with one small bathroom should be interesting.

It will be nice to spend a few days with my parents and just wander around the city. Each time I see them we talk less and less about the divorce and the debacles of the past year, which is nice. Soon the divorce will be a distant memory.

Sometimes I feel like I have split personalities.

There's a part of me that wants to be single forever and stay in Manhattan and just do my thing. Who wants a man in their life so they can f#@& you over and destroy what you've accomplished?

But then there's a part of me who longs for the married life I once enjoyed. Sometimes I miss the companionship and going to bed each night next to someone I love. I sometimes even imagine leaving Manhattan and moving out West to be near my family, enjoy the slower paced life and perhaps meet someone who is "real" and start a family.

I see my sister and her new husband happily beginning their life together. I see my cousin and her husband and their new little boy enjoying family life. There's a part of me that is so jealous and wants that too.

Then, as soon as those thoughts enter my mind, my other half jumps in and tells me to forget about it. I'm better off staying single. It's safer. Thanks to my divorce, I no longer have the nice home I loved and, more importantly, my credit is now shit so why would I want to subject myself to that again? There is no such thing as someone who is "real", even out West. Especially in today's materialistic and appearance-obsessed society, men are men and they aren't interested in being faithful.

And that's how my mind works. I go back and forth and back and forth. It's like I have two different people living within my body. Does anyone else feel this way?

Since my sister's graduation from nursing school fell in between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my family decided that it made the most sense to celebrate Christmas early while everyone was on the West Coast anyway. After all, it isn't the calendar day that really matters but the time spent with family.

This Christmas time with my family was especially special because it marked the first holiday for my sister and her new husband in their new home. She put up a Christmas tree and put up stockings on their fireplace and everything looked so nice.

My sister proudly whipped up homemade sugar cookies in her kitchen and was eager to host turkey dinner.

I remember how excited I was when my family came to visit my then-husband and I in our new home. Those days now seem so long ago.

It was nice because my grandparents live near my sister and they were able to share the holidays with us. My grandmother has been battling health ailments and is no longer able to travel long distances, so it was so nice having them there.

My cousin, who is only six months older than me, and her husband also stopped by with their little one-year-old boy. It was good to see them and I forced myself to push aside any feelings of envy. I'm so glad to see my cousin happy, but we'd always imagined that we would be married around the same time and that our children would grow up together — almost like siblings — like her and I had growing up. As I've learned, there are some things that you just can't plan.

Overall, it was a great time spent with family.

Well, the holiday season is here and, while I'm in better spirits this year versus last, I know that it won't be as merry as I'd like. But I'm getting there.

I have always loved Christmas. It has always been a happy time of year for friends and family, freshly cut Christmas trees, homemade baked goods, crackling fireplaces, warm apple cider and snow.

Whether John — my ex — and I would stay on the East Coast and have family visit or travel to the West Coast to visit them for Christmas, I would always take the time to decorate the home we once shared. I would put up a tree, decorate the house and bake cookies using recipes passed down from my grandmother. I wanted to recreate the holiday joy that I had always enjoyed growing up. And the idea of eventually having children and having Christmas in our home for years to come was so exciting.

All of that now seems worlds away, and yet it feels like just yesterday.

This will be my first Christmas in my apartment in Manhattan and the idea of decorating it for the holidays seems pointless. I'm not sure if having my apartment decorated would help get me into the Christmas spirit or would make me more depressed. I pass tree stands on the sidewalks and decorations for sale in the stores but I just can't get myself to buy any of it.

I also thought, or hoped, that I would get an early Christmas present this year — closure to the loose financial ends that I still have with my ex. No luck.

I guess I should just take comfort in the fact that this year is better than last year. Last year, I was still married but knew that my then-husband not only wanted a divorce, but was cheating on me. I spent the holidays alone with my parents and while I never once shed a tear in their presence, inside I was crushed.

I know that time heals all wounds but sometimes the time passes so slowly.

When I picked up my car the other day to take it to a used lot to sell it I decided that since I was in the neighborhood I should swing by a friend’s house — my girlfriend, Jamie, who is the one who had told me about John’s infidelity.

It has been at least a few months since I’ve seen her, so it was good to catch up. It is always a bit odd going to her house because John and I enjoyed spending time with her and her husband and we had envisioned that our future children would be playmates with their two kids.

Ever since John figured out that Jamie and her husband had spilled the beans about his infidelity he has erased them from his life.

Sometimes just being in their presence feels like a trip back in time and reopens some of the healing wounds. But they are good people, so I have made an effort not to block them from my life.

It isn’t always easy.

I was heading to a work-related event the other morning, and I decided to take my personal camera instead my work camera because it is so much smaller.

I knew that the camera disk was full, so I took it out to replace it with another one. I hadn't used the disk for quite awhile, and had no idea what photos — if any — were on it.

I soon discovered that the second disk did have some photos on it — photos I took several years ago at my then father-in-law's surprise birthday party.

My heart skipped a beat when my ex father-in-law's smiling face came up on the display screen. It was a great party. We invited about twenty of his closest friends, and reserved a large table at one of his favorite restaurants. There were a lot of smiles and laughs that night, and there they were all frozen in time on my camera.

It was sad thinking that I will never see any of those people again. So much was lost, and for what? Because John didn't want to keep his dick in his pants. What a waste.

I talked with my mother on the phone the other day, and she said that she and my father noticed that I seem much more relaxed, like my old self — like I was before I met my ex — when I was at my sister's wedding in Seattle.

She said that looking back, they realized that during my nine-years with John, I become uptight and didn't joke around as much.

At first I thought it sounded odd, since John and I had laughed all of the time. However, looking back, I think we were much more reserved around friends and family, for whatever reason.

What makes my parents' observation even more interesting is that some friends of mine — a married couple John and I used to hang out with — told me the same thing several months ago! While they didn't know me when I was single, they said they had noticed a change in me, for the better, since the divorce. They used almost exactly the same words: I seemed more "relaxed."

I guess I do feel a sense of freedom and relief since the divorce, knowing that I am able to stand strong on my own two feet, that I don't have to spend my energy worrying about John cheating again. But perhaps there's more to it than that?

Maybe deep down I really wasn't as happy as I thought I was?

The first incident occurred at the wedding reception when a distant cousin named Stacey casually asked me, "Where's your other half? He couldn't make it?"

Within seconds such thoughts as "How could she not have heard?" and "Oh god, I really don't want to get into this conversation" ran through my mind.

Figuring it was the easiest way out, I just replied with a "No" and quickly found a way to dismiss myself from the conversation and walked away. I knew that when she did find out she would feel like an ass for saying anything, even though she had nothing to be ashamed of.

Sure enough, the next day at my cousin's son's birthday party (he just turned one) another relative told me that Stacey felt terrible. Apparently, someone had filled her in. Although Stacey had left and I had no way of reaching her, I told her aunt to tell her that it was fine and not to worry about it.

Then, while I was at my cousin's son's birthday bash, a friend of the family asked me where my "hubby" was. AAHHH!! Again, I took the easy way out and just said he couldn't make it. Gossip travels like wildfire in my family but I guess those on the "outskirts" had yet to hear the news. I had just assumed that everyone would have known, so it threw me for a bit of a loop. Oh well, what's a girl to do?

What do I mean? Well, for example, I found myself having a hard time picking out a wedding card for my sister and her new husband. Most of the cards had the words "forever" and "lifetime." If I got a card that talked of "forever" would they think, "Yeah right, A.J. ... do you really believe this?" So, I ended up getting a card that wished them the best and congratulated them on their marriage.

Then I had to figure out what to write in the card. My first inclination was to offer some piece of sisterly advice on marriage but then I thought to myself, "What advice can I offer about marriage? After all, look how my marriage turned out." So I just wished them the best and welcomed her new husband to the family.

I imagine that I was probably obsessing over minute details but I couldn't help it. I guess I still haven't fully adjusted to the idea of being divorced since it was only finalized in March. I imagine that will happen in time.