How to release suffering

Oh, how we suffer. In the hours and days and weeks and months following the discovery or disclosure of our partner's affair, we exist in an excruciating state of suspension. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to wake up. It hurts when he walks out the door and it hurts when he stays.
Everything hurts.
But, as I've noted before, sometimes it's what we do to ourselves in the wake of betrayal that hurts us even more.
The fantasies we conjure, for instance. You know the ones. Where we replay how we imagine their interaction went. Where she's witty and beautiful and sexy. Where he's besotted and generous. The truth often resembles nothing like this. But it's almost like we refuse to believe it. Why would anyone risk their marriage, their family for someone who wasn't dazzling and irresistible? It defies logic. And so we cling to this fantasy. Even when it's wrong. Even when it hurts us more.
Or we spend our days longing for things to be different. If only...we tell ourselves. If only he hadn't taken the job where he met her. If only we had insisted he stay home that night. If only we had seen what was happening sooner. Suffering, says Sylvia Boorstein, is our attachment to the idea that now could be otherwise. Spending our days wishing things were different only keeps us tethered to our suffering. It's not like suffering magically vanishes once we say to ourselves, "well, this is my reality so I might has well deal with it". But it does move in the direction of less suffering. It gives us back our power when we accept our situation. When we're so busy wringing our hands, we can't use them. When we let go of our attachment to the idea that things could be different (of course, they could. No matter what our reality is any day of our lives, things could be different...), we free ourselves of the Gordian knot that keeps us stuck.
How?
Well, you practice. If your self-esteem is a bit shaky (and whose isn't after our husbands cheat on us?), then you begin by shoring it up. You check the foundation and patch any cracks. You remind yourself that his cheating has nothing to do with your value. Rather it devalues him, not you. You're as great a catch as ever. You ensure that only those people who think you're awesome, a workshop leader I know calls them "super-fans", the people in your life who support every thing you do, are allowed into your life.
You switch up your affair fantasies. It's more likely true that the fairy tale you're imagining was a bit of a nightmare. I mostly hear stories of kinda crappy sex, miserable and/or unhinged Other Women, shame and self-disgust, feelings of being trapped. It's just as easy to change the channel in your brain to this less idealized (and more accurate) depiction. Imagine an Other Woman with room-clearing flatulence. Or an embarrassing laugh. Or whatever else makes her human and less threatening.
Try and catch yourself when you begin wandering down the "if only...." road. I went right back to the night my husband and I met. If only I had stayed home that night. If only I had said 'no' when he asked me out. Our life is not sliding doors. We're shaped by our choices and those of others. That's life. If, in hindsight, we want to review some of our choices with the clear eyes that come with time and perspective, then by all means, do it. We can all learn to pay more attention to our gut or our intuition or our inner wisdom or our self-respect. We can recognize when we're doing things we don't want to do.
But, mostly, we can release the idea that we had any real control over a decision that our partner made. We didn't make that choice, he did. And he did it for reasons of his own that he, if he wants us to consider giving him a second chance, needs to discern for himself.
Leave that with him.
Focus on you.
Wonderful, devastated you.