worsestershiresauce hits the nail on the head. We are into our third year post-discovery and I still have bad days and pain - the jealousy and hurt at his emotional intimacy with someone who is not you is agonising, never mind the sexual betrayal. But the bad days are getting fewer, although I have 'triggers'. I still find it hard to watch stuff on TV or films where there is an affair involved and it is all painted as very glamorous, the 'OK' thing to do and entirely devoid of any pain for the betrayed partner, or the DCs. The OW was incredibly attractive (physically - she proved to have a scarily unpleasant and vengeful character once denied 'her' man), and I still struggle with how I look, my body etc, despite my DH's repeated assurances that he finds me attractive. He had told her she had a body to die for - the usual shit - but it has had a profound and lasting impact on my personal self-confidence.
He too displayed the same ambiguity towards me for some time and I know how completely agonising that is but reading Shirley Glass's book and Andrew Marshall's advice at that time and subsequently on how, when someone is in the affair 'bubble', they disengage emotionally from their spouse/partner made me realise he was not unique in his responses to me. He didn't do what I expected him to do when I found out - he didn't beg for my forgiveness and plead with me not to end our marriage - instead he told me he had 'never known love like it' as that he had found with the OW. I can not begin to explain how profound my shock was at those words; my world shifted in its universe and everything seemed utterly distorted and without any solid foundations any more.
Like you NC and profound heart-searching on both our parts enabled us to make A START on repairing our marriage. He moved jobs and ultimately we moved house after her harassment - after he finally ended it for real - became too intolerable (that's another and longer story). He too is genuinely sorry, utterly mortified and would do anything, anything to turn back time and never have done it. And like you, I stayed with him because I too believed that he still loved me, somewhere deep inside, in those early hellish months, despite his (secretly) continuing with the OW. Most of my friends said LTB. But I didn't want to. If he wanted to go and leave our DC and me, it was him that had to make the decision - I was not prepared to give him the luxury of making it for him. I know many others on this site don't believe this is the right approach, but for me, for us, our DC, it was. It is bloody, bloody hard. The hardest thing I have ever done and still do, but I don't regret it. Yes, I sometimes rage at myself for not kicking him out at the time and making him beg to come back, so that perhaps it would have kicked that early ambiguity into touch and therefore reduced my and the DCs suffering - but for me, despite being very far from a walk-over - it was not what I wanted. I am glad we are still together. I love him with all my heart and I believe that he feels the same about me. Someone wrote on this site that I was 'polishing a turd of a relationship'. They couldn't be more wrong.
Good luck, OP - more posters and lurkers than you can imagine have done what you have done. I admire the strength and courage of all those who have chosen the alternative path, equally I take off my hat to all those who grit their teeth and try and make it work (if given the opportunity and their DH/DP is sincere in his commitment). Thinking of you. Five months is nothing, nothing. You are still in shock and bereaved. You have lost what you thought you had and now have something different. But that doesn't mean that - ultimately - you won't find a peace with it. Thinking of you. x