Being the wife of the leader of the free world is never going to be an easy task. Being the wife of the president who famously romanced Marilyn Monroe while in office would probably be exceedingly difficult.

And yet, throughout her short time as First Lady—tragically cut short when her husband was assassinated—Jackie Kennedy was poised, dedicated and the model of a politician's wife.

She never let on that her husband's many rumored affairs upset her, and never discussed the constant speculation, which must have caused her pain.

Now new light is being shed on just how she handled John F. Kennedy's many indiscretions. According to a new report in People, she simply ignored them, and chose to consider them a part of married life.

"It was a marriage of its time," a close family friend told People. "At the end of the day, Jack came back to Jackie—and that was it. They loved each other."

The friend told People, "It was kinetic between them. She wasn’t trying to change him."

It shows a little bit of how much the world has changed since 1960, and the way marriages have changed to become more equal partnerships. Whereas in the '60s, a president's affairs while in office were largely ignored (or even assumed), the reaction a few decades later in the '90s was very different.

And while it's impossible to know exactly what rules the Kennedys had going in their union, People says Jackie Kennedy drew on her parents' marriage for her own standards and expectations.

"She came from a world where that is what men did, and it was accepted," the author of a book about Jackie Kennedy, Pamela Keogh, says.

A world very much of its time.

It does seem somewhat surreal to imagine Jackie Kennedy tolerating this arrangement, but how couples choose to negotiate their marriages is up to them and no one else. And if the reports are to be believed, Jackie Kennedy knew exactly what her husband was doing.

Cornelia Guest (whose mother, C.Z. Guest, was a close friend of the First Lady) told People: "It was all just, you turn the other cheek."