IT’ S BEEN A ROUGH MONTH

“While Donald embarrasses her constantly, she has her own agenda,” says the insider, noting that Melania, whose approval rating has skyrocketed since January, is very conscious of the image she is cultivating. “She wants to go down in history as a first lady of quiet grace, like Jackie Kennedy, who put up with a lot but stayed the course. She’s playing the game.”

COOL AND COLLECTED Melania’s poker face is strong. “She’s got such a calm manner — on the surface anyway,” says the insider. Indeed, on April 18 (the day after Stormy dropped in at The View to tell her story) she escorted Akie Abe, the wife of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, around the historic Flagler Museum in Palm Beach, Fla.

A few days later, she hosted French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, who described her as “kind, charming, intelligent and very open,” but also noted that the Slovenian-born beauty is “much more constrained” by her position and is therefore more guarded in public. Agrees the insider: “Melania goes about her day-to-day life and never shows her true emotions.”

Behind closed doors with Donald, Melania doesn’t hold back. “In private, they fight,” claims the insider, adding that Melania isn’t scared to yell at her husband when she’s upset. On a few rare occasions, her displeasure has crept into public view — she’s been caught on camera rejecting Donald’s attempt to hold hands more than once. There also were reports

that Melania spent nights at a posh D.C. hotel in the wake of In Touch’s bombshell report on Stormy. (After the scandal broke, Melania canceled a planned trip to Davos, Switzerland, with the president and hid out at Mar-a-lago.)

Donald’s first wife, Ivana Trump, 69, empathizes with Melania, who began dating Donald in 1998 after they met at a New York Fashion Week party at the Kit Kat Club while he was still married to Marla Maples, 54. “I feel bad for [Melania] because I know how bad I did feel [when Donald cheated on me]. It hurts a lot,” Ivana said in a recent interview. “I divorced Donald immediately

[after I discovered the Maples affair] because I told myself, ‘Am I going to live with the person [who] is going to say, ‘I’m going to go and play golf’ [ leaving me to] think, ‘Is he really going to go and play golf?’ I cannot do it. I have pride and I have dignity and stuff like that, but so many women, around the world, they live with the men knowing that they are cheating and stuff like that.”

STAYING PUT But Melania is standing by her man. “She promised Donald she would stay married to him as long as he was president,” says a source. For years, she lived the under-the-radar life of an NYC socialite — shopping, attending dinner parties and getting her hair and makeup done for events — and now it’s her turn to play the role of supportive wife. “The last thing she ever expected was for Donald to become president of the United States,” says the insider. “But she’s starting to like the respect she’s attained.”

Another reason she can’t leave: It would cause a scandal that would be upsetting and disruptive to her No. 1 priority, her 12-year-old son. “For Barron’s sake, she’ll probably stay,” says the insider. ( When asked for comment on this story, Melania’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, dismissed reports of trouble in the marriage as “speculation and nonsense.”)

One thing is certain — being married to the POTUS leaves Melania with plenty of alone time. Whether running the country or golfing, he doesn’t have much time to spend with Melania, says the source, adding that “she’s fine” with that. The recent disclosure that Melania secretly bought her own $1.5 million apartment in Manhattan’s Trump Tower in 2016 raised eyebrows. And Donald didn’t even accompany her when she had kidney surgery on May 14. While some questioned why she spent five days in the hospital after the embolization — which cuts off the blood supply to the kidney and typically requires one day of recovery — some medical experts say it could just be “an abundance of caution” by doctors. Jamin Brahmbhatt, urologist at Orlando Health and Assistant Professor at UCF College of Medicine, who hasn’t treated Melania, tells In Touch that “patients may stay in the hospital for observation and management of symptoms like pain, nausea, vomiting and fever.”

Throughout it all, Melania has been leaning more on her mom, Amalija Knavs, who lives nearby and often travels with the first family. “She doesn’t trust many people, so Amalija is her main confidante,” says the insider. “She seeks her advice on everything from parenting to Donald.” But people shouldn’t read too much into the couple’s time spent apart, says Federico, the family friend who’s known the Trumps for many years. As for sleeping in different quarters, that’s “nothing unusual,” insists Federico. “The president doesn’t sleep as much as she sleeps, so [in order] not to disturb her, he might sleep in a different room. But that doesn’t mean anything about not being in love. It doesn’t mean you’re not united as a couple.”

It also doesn’t mean they’ll stay that way. “Melania does love Donald — even though some people find that hard to believe,” says the insider. “It’s possible she could change her mind in the future. But for now, she’s planning on staying put.” ◼

Melania has had one cardinal rule: Don’t embarrass me” — AN INSIDER