"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Chirst Jesus." Phil 4: 6-7
Grace, this is so crazy but I finally sat down to find a novena for you and at the top of the page was this very same prayer! So God has a message for you, DO NOT WORRY, just pray. From reading your posts, you seem to me to be desperate to get rid of the suffering, to find a solution -- e.g., your IC will fix it, your prayer will fix it, etc. I think that this approach is making you crazy, but it's the same approach that makes all of us crazy.
OF COURSE your mind will obsess over OW and H. He is your husband! He is your one flesh and he has betrayed you! If your mind didn't race and obsess, you would not be loving wonderful Grace but a boulder of some kind. Your IC is not going to be able to rationalize your pain away.
As DnJ said on so many thread posts -- This is going to take some time. By prayer and petition, very very slowly, you will begin to have some peace. Not because H changes but because you do. It will take a long time. You will find yourself a year from now, looking at your old posts, and marveling at what you have accepted and how you have some joy again. Pain still but joy too.
The things you say about dating are mystifying to me. I think it is part of your idea that if you just stumble on the right thing, you will be able to not feel pain. Dating is definitely going to distract you and allow you to feel some retribution, to feel attractive. But I think it's kind of like smoking. It is great in many ways but ultimately all the fun it gives you carries grave risks.
I don't think dating will please God in any way, shape or form, or allow you to listen to God's plan for you as a married woman. If you start dating while you are married, you are putting a wall between you and God's voice. I have been able to hear God so much more clearly the more I commit to my stand -- I am in year six. I have been tempted a lot, believe me. But dating is a whole other story.
As for our novena -- I was looking for the best one, and I think we should pray the divine mercy for nine days or the litany of trust for nine days or the untangler of knots for nine days. The litany of trust isn't really a novena but we can use it as one. Most novenas are to a saint, and I thought as a protestant that might seem too over the top for you to pray to a saint. Let me know which one you are picking and what day you will start it, and I will do the same. I will check in with you about it until Lent starts, when I am giving up the boards for at least 40 days.
This one is the Divine Mercy chaplet. You can just use your fingers instead of beads and you can skip the parts of it that seem "too Catholic." They suggest intentions but for our novena, you would pray each day for the one grace you are asking for -- I think we said it would be clarity to understand God's will for us right now, but you can choose the intention you want and it can be more specific, it's up to you! I was just taught to focus on one thing and not have a list of things for one novena. So tell God your intention each day before you start the prayer. This is for whichever of these three you choose. I will check tomorrow to see which one you picked and to know which date to start.
