Persisting while wanting to change: women's lived experiences

This article presents an inquiry into a common lived experience, which the author named persisting while wanting to change to signify the struggle of trying to change health patterns. Parse's phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology was used to investigate the phenomenon, as it is lived by women in an abusive relationship. Through dialogical engagement with the researcher, eight women described their experiences of persisting while wanting to change. The generated structure and central finding contained three core concepts: wavering in abiding with the burdensome-cherished, engaging-distancing with ameliorating intentions, and anticipating the possibilities of the new. The core concepts are illustrated with excerpts from the dialogues and are discussed in relation to Parse's human becoming theory and related literature. Findings are consistent with those of other studies in which leaving an abusive relationship was described as a process. Implications for practice and further research also are discussed.