Wenn ich mich nicht dazu entschieden hätte, dich zu operieren, wärst du auf ewig ein Krüppel.
I just started learning German a couple of days ago, and I’m not sure if I correctly understand the function of the "dazu" here.
I find it interesting to see that the phrase "decide to operate you" in English needs to take a dual form in German (in a manner of speaking), translating into something like:
decide to/for/about that (i.e. to operate you)
The "dazu" seems to have a supplementary role for the comma-enclosed part "dich zu operieren". I wonder if the same goes for "be capable of doing" = "dazu fähig sein, etw zu tun", for instance?