We have found it useful to distinguish five ways of establishing a second adult life structure and Becoming One’s Own Man. There is nothing absolute about these five categories; they are simply a convenient means of describing variations. But all of our forty men — and others whose lives we have studied — went through one or another of these sequences:
A. Advancement within a stable life structure
B. Serious failure or decline within a stable life structure
C. Breaking out: trying for a new life structure
D. Advancement which itself produces a change in life structure