I wrote an earlier post explaining how my wife cheated on me with my best friend over a period of nine months. She has cheated multiple times. I can’t live like this anymore. We have three kids and divorce is very likely. I have no one to talk too. I would normally vent to my mom but she has stage 4 liver cirrhosis and I don’t want to stress her out. I would vent to my brother but he recently has been diagnosed with a heart problem and I don’t want to put any extra stress on him either. I can’t talk to my wife or the person I thought was my best friend because they are the reason I’m so hurt. I’m lost and alone. I’ve prayed for comfort and I have talked to my pastor which did help but I just don’t know how to cope with this intense loneliness.
When the initial shock of something negative hits me, I too am desperate for anything that will numb my emotional pain. There are two ways to cope/handle that emotional pain for me: 1.) productive and 2.) unproductive.
Unproductive: I'd be lying if I said I don't ever choose to be unproductive when feeling depressed. Video games distract my mind and allow me to feel relatively normal for a period of time. I'm not necessarily advocating for this, I'm just letting you know what I do/have done in my life when I've been heartbroken. The trouble with this is, once you stop playing, it comes back lol. Not only does it come back, but you did absolutely nothing proactive to help your situation other than take some time to take a deep breath away from your pain. I would only advise this in small doses and not as a long-term solution to coping. By the way, it doesn't have to be video games. It can be anything you enjoy doing that distracts your mind (this is mine).
Productive: As Depleted stated perfectly, focusing even more on Heavenly Father in our time of need helps to cope with that pain. Trust me, I can understand the initial disinterest in focusing on God when your heart is ripped out, but once I do it, I always feel better. The best way that helps me is through serving other people. I find that when serving other people, I do get a mental distraction from my own problems... especially serving those that are less fortunate than yourself. It brings about a gratefulness and a humility that eases that emotional pain you have. The good thing about this is you can do it as often as you want/are able to whenever you're down because it is doing what God has commanded us to do. It's not like playing video games.
At the end of the day, there is one specific thing you have to do: Forgive her. Maybe you have "already forgiven her", but when you have those feelings, you have to "re-forgive" her. A lot of people think you only forgive someone once per sin... unfortunately it doesn't really work that way. When we don't forgive someone, we carry with it all the baggage from that relationship. Forgiveness releases that baggage. When we feel that baggage weighing us down (the emotional heartache and pain), we have to focus on re-forgiving them even if we don't want to. We have to first have the desire to forgive, then we have to reforgive when we feel the effects of their sin. Over time, it sticks and we are free of the emotional baggage.