thanks to @dulcito-on-ao3 and @cyclaes I’ve developed a very particular headcanon regarding Milidiana and Luigi Claes, and it is now time to infect everyone else with it.
I think part of their problems are that they grew up with two very different ideas and understandings of what love is.
Luigi thinks love is selfless. That true love gives everything and holds nothing back, it doesn’t even demand reciprocity. If it was in anyway dependent on “i love that you love me” then that’s not real love. Real love is the mother that gives up her child in the face of Solomon so that it might live and breathe. Real love is the man that steps aside and holds his feelings to himself so that which he loves may be free. Real love seeks to do everything for their loved one’s happiness, making sure they don’t have to do anything they don’t want to.
This is highly influenced by advanced sophisticated lit written by a noble class that lives in perpetual physical isolation. The limits of noble society and constrains of love within class boundaries and the missteps of acting to passionately when the country is a powder keg are relevant societal factors that introduce a selfless love as true love.
My evidence is how he loves Katarina in canon. In every version of his life, he does his best to spoil Katarina rotten, giving her everything and never demanding even the slightest change in behavior or appreciation from her. She could purposefully restart a war, and Luigi is in her corner. He gives everything to those he loves, and expects nothing in return, so everything they do give him back, every moment of their time, is their own gift to him and makes him feel loved in return.
Milidiana, grown up in the harsher north and with less of a taste for literature, knows love is reciprocity. It is leaning on each other, depending on each other. It is Dad riding off to war and Mom organizing and overseeing the supply lines. It is the husband bringing home pay and the wife having the meal and house organized so she then uses the coin and he uses the home and they know they need the other. It is Mom handling the social calls and Dad handling the servants. You must rely on each other, and nothing is more romantic than being trusted with a task they need you to do, with the full confidence they can do it well.
Again, evidence by FL!Katarina. Dad’s love was given freely, but she had to be the lady her mother wanted her to be to get Mom’s love. Make sure she followed Mom’s instruction and listened to her needs and troubles, take her side, while Mom went out of her way to make sure Katarina had the best connections, best clothes, best instructors.
Both forms of love have value, but without communication, I imagine their marriage went something like:
Milidiana: Husband, look! During your three day stay in the capitol, I’ve organized all the accounts, made a new trade deal for the ore in Claes mines to be exported as a luxury to Ethenell, and redid the ballroom! :)
Luigi: Oh dear, you didn’t have to do all that. Are we short-staffed? I can have more staff hired right away so you can focus on things you actually like. I want you to be happy here, you don’t need to work yourself so hard :)
Milidiana: :( Oh … then, I’ll just … go and entertain myself. (he doesn’t trust me, I knew this marriage was out of pity)
Luigi: :( Okay, you have fun and let me know if there is absolutely anything I can do for you. (oh no, she went quiet and is walking away, she hates me and I forced her into this marriage, how selfish am I for making her stay here)
Then you get FL Katarina who is stuck and confused and demands nothing of FL Geordo, determined to love him the way her father loves. And keeping away anyone she knows would be a nuisance to him because he relies on her to do that, the way her mother taught her to love. When Geordo turns on her for doing what she thought he was relying on her to do, i.e. keep people/Maria away, the one sign of his affection is gone and she goes off the deep end.