Lisa Renee Cecala, a graphics artist from Chicago, pauses on a busy street near her apartment in downtown Chicago Thursday, Oct. 18, 2001. (AP)

A hard-charging investment banker, Debbie Young used to savor life as a single woman in downtown Chicago. Now, after restless nights contemplating terrorism and war, going solo has lost its allure.

"I'm an extremely independent person," she said. "But you sit at home by yourself and watch the news on TV, and suddenly at 1 or 2 in the morning, you don't want to be alone. I'm scared."

Using a matchmaking service, Young, 39, has intensified her search for a committed partner. She is one of countless Americans who have found an incentive to redefine their romantic relationships and revitalize family ties in the shadow of terrorism.

Singles without a soul mate are seeking them. Parents without wills are writing them. Couples with conflicts are resolving them.

Not all the changes fit into neat patterns, nor are they all about healing. While some spouses have abandoned divorce proceedings, new anxieties have hastened the breakups of other couples.

But interviews with matchmaking consultants, marriage counselors, divorce lawyers and other experts make clear that the Sept. 11 attacks - and the fears of more trouble - have instilled a deeper appreciation for the importance of family and intimate bonds.

"People are seeking marriage counseling significantly more than they were prior to Sept. 11," said Enid Norris, a family therapist in Stamford, Conn. "They're trying to work things out - they're much more conscious of the value of relationships."

Chicago divorce attorney Stephen Komie said business in September dropped by more than 50 percent compared to a year earlier. Connie Boysen, whose law firm in Overland Park, Kan., specializes in divorce, said even couples who are splitting up have become more civil.

"In fights over custody, you could tell parents were trying to pull together to calm kids," Boysen said. "When something like this happens, it puts your own personal tragedies in a different perspective."

There also is a keener sense of mortality, and perhaps a stronger desire to make sure loved ones are cared for. Pamela Gorski, a family law attorney in suburban Cleveland, said her divorce caseload remains steady, but she reported a surging demand for wills, "particularly for people who are traveling."

Michael Yergin, director of the Premiere Connections matchmaking service in Chicago, said his business has jumped dramatically.

"Since Sept. 11, we've seen probably the largest increase since I've been in the industry," said Yergin, who entered the field in 1969.

Young is one of Yergin's clients. She has enjoyed a successful career and freewheeling social life, but her outlook changed after the attacks.

"I still take my career very seriously," she said. "But since the incident, I realize there's more to my life than being at the office every day. I'd rather be poor and in love - I want to be with somebody."

Another of Yergin's clients, graphics artist Lisa Renee Cecala, said her previously low-gear search for a mate has taken on new urgency.

"I have to admit, after Sept. 11, I've been sitting on my sofa really wishing I had that special someone to hold me," said Cecala, 36. "I wish I was married right now."

Her girlfriends have reacted similarly, she said. One who had a multiyear engagement finally agreed with her fiance that the time to tie the knot had come.

In some cases, the attacks have had the opposite effect.

Dail Metzger, owner of the Singles Network dating service in southwestern Connecticut, said some clients have solidified relationships since Sept. 11, while others have broken them off. "I guess they realized it wasn't right, that life is short," she said.

Curtis McMillan, a professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, has studied the aftermath of previous disasters, including earthquakes and the Oklahoma City bombing.

"People report both positive and negative changes in their relationships," he said. "With people who are not yet fully committed to each other, they look at how the other person responds to the crisis. You can get a sense of how compassionate they're going to be."

Leslie Freedman, a psychologist with offices in Stamford, Conn., and New York City, has observed new concerns among suburbanites.

"People who commute to the city, leaving children in the suburbs, feel more anxious," Freedman said. "People who have the option to telecommute, or are able to leave work earlier to go pick up their kids, are taking the opportunity."

As with previous major mobilizations, an upsurge of weddings has been reported near military bases. But Jean Dent, minister at The Wedding Chapel in Nitro, W. Va. said there's also has been more business from couples without a military connection.

"They are just waking up and deciding they are getting married today," said Dent, who has seen services jump from five a week to five a day.

Phillip McGowan and Elza Chapa of Crystal City, Va., already had a wedding date set for December when the terrorists struck, killing Chapa's mother, Rosemary, at the Pentagon. Instead of postponing the long-planned wedding, the couple advanced the date to Sept. 20. The ceremony was attended by six guests instead of 125.

Anecdotes abound of parents gaining new appreciation for their children, of young adults reconnecting with faraway parents, of children showing new interest in their grandparents' memories of World War II.

Don Browning, director of the Religion, Culture and Family Project at the University of Chicago Divinity School, says the attacks have powerfully shown how people turn to their families in times of upheaval.

"This leaves us with a question," he wrote in a newsletter this month. "Does it take disasters to remind us of the importance of good marriages and vital families? Do we have to be scared out of our wits to realize the essential value of these realities for our lives?"

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