Decision Making Skills
I
sat Kristin down and explained to her that because she lacks decision making
skills, I had tried to teach her how to make good decisions, including by using a simple 2 x 2 matrix to identify the pros and cons of the options. She
had neither used nor shown an interest in the decision making skills that I had taught her, so I had been
telling her what decisions are good for her, and her life had been stable when she heeded them.
I told her that I have known people who didn't weigh the pros and cons methodically and just made decisions with their gut feeling, and things tended to work out well for them. But she wasn't one of them. All of the decisions she made against my counsel, including driving off to the Baptist college without first checking it out, repeatedly flying off to China knowing full well that her body can't tolerate its toxic air pollution, were driven by her emotions, were hurting her, and causing havoc in her life. If she wasn't going to learn decision making skills, she needed to at least heed the decisions that I made for her using those skills.
She replied that if I would just marry her, she would have me as her head and then be able to simply obey whatever I tell her to do instead of having to make decisions on her own. When I reminded her of the reasons why her healing, including from borderline personality disorder, had to precede marriage and children, and that she had concurred with me in her email, she again cried.
The summer in that inland city was exceptionally hot and wet, and Kristin's health did not recover as before. She continued to languish, so I searched online and found a seaside city that was said to rain the least in the country. We moved there and rented an Airbnb, where she slept in the bedroom and I slept in the living room.