⚠️ CW: Content below touches on themes of toxic relationship, infidelity, and explorations of self harm (i.e.; anorexia). ⛔️ MDNI
I’m mode again thinking about the toxic ship 🚩 that is Leon x Reader (Ex-Husband!Leon series).
The idea that they both know exactly how to get under each other’s skin, but also how to counter each other’s toxicity.
Every time Leon thinks about the other woman, he attempts to cover up his guilt by becoming distant and aloof when he is home. He knows the Reader is starving for his affection, so she would be too preoccupied with being fixated on getting his attention than to be focusing on why he feels “different”. He does this because -psychologically- it makes him feel less guilty because he is atoning for his infidelity by keeping his distance from her, but it’s HER who keeps on wanting to keep him in her life (ex. her chasing for his attention). This is how he is able to live with himself and his double life.
The Reader being aware how Leon still remains insecure about himself at heart (despite her not knowing his whole backstory and the truth of the RE verse). When she feels him begin to act distant, she returns that coldness by letting him be - by no longer affirming her devotion to him and ceasing to tell him “I love you”. And this is exactly how to disarm Leon, because she is the only person left in this world who says this to him and wholeheartedly means it (his mother is no longer in this world, and his ex-girlfriend has moved on with him being a past tense in her life). Leon, being someone who gives to the world so selflessly, NEEDS to have that same type of selfless devotion given to him: he gives, but he must also take so he could continue giving. Leon who doubts himself and his own worth NEEDS to have that love explicitly affirmed, so he NEEDS to hear her say it. The Reader withholding that from him makes him anxious as his insecurities starts to haunt and eat away at him again.
The Reader being resentful towards Leon for being distant and withholding his affection. Also, her being very diabolically aware that the best way to get back at Leon is to hurt herself. So, she starts to form unhealthy habits such as developing anorexia (because food is one of Leon’s love languages, and one of the things he would notice first) to make him suffer through watching her self destruct and him being the reason why.
Leon knowing very well that all the Reader wants is to get his attention. So he refuses to give her any attention, and he does that by leaving. Once he leaves, he disarms her because her self destructive performance ends since there is no longer an audience. When she looses the satisfaction of seeing his reaction, she also looses the power to negotiate. When she looses the power to negotiate, she is no longer able to demand the truth from him: did he ever love her? And this is how he keeps her compliant in his domestic fantasy.
