Jennifer and Matt were on their way to Matt's parent's house when Jennifer started questioning why they go to their house so often. Matt didn't understand why Jennifer was questioning it because he loved seeing his mom and Jennifer getting so close. Jennifer felt like Kelly, Matt's mom, was acting like she had know Jennifer her whole life and expected Jennifer to tell her everything. Jennifer feels like since these people are not her own parents she does not need to tell them personal things about herself. Matt wants Jennifer to look at his parents as if they were hers, and he expects Jennifer to be extremely open with his family.
In Matt's point of view, he was raised that he can talk to him family about anything at any time and they will respect him. He accounts, or explains, his family bond as always being that way and impossible to change. In Jennifer's point of view, she was raised to believe talking freely about your problems made you vulnerable. It is true that the level of openness you experience with your family can influence how open you are toward others. Jennifer does not feel comfortable with how Matt expects her to act because she has never experienced that. So when Matt told his family about their argument about when to have kids, Jennifer felt extremely betrayed. Matt never asked Jennifer if it was okay to disclose this information to his family. It is important to find someone you can confide in and Jennifer thought she could with Matt. Jennifer did not expect Matt's family to react how they did. She feels that she has put a lot of effort into her education and she wants to pursue her career before having children. Matt feels that Jennifer should get pregnant right away and stay at home, and Matt's brothers agree with him. Matt's family begin reproaching, or criticizing, her actions and opinion about her own life. His brother's make comments of her being selfish and get frustrated with her for not wanting a family right away. The situation that Jennifer was put in was too overwhelming and she ends up leaving. This is a perfect example of Jennifer and Matt not affectively managing their boundaries. Boundary management is what we tell people about our relationship. Jennifer and Matt clearly do not agree on this and it causes lots of confusion and frustration.
Impression management goals are goals that we try to achieve when we are interacting with other people. We do this in four different ways demonstrate social competence, construct an impression, protect impression integrity, and restore impression integrity. When we demonstrate social competence we are following general conversational conventions, or being polite. Jennifer does this when she tried to interact with Matt's family. For example, even though she feels uncomfortable with calling Matt's mom "mom" she does it anyway. When we construct an impression we build a sense of appropriateness in the situation. We tell ourselves we can do it and we can handle what position we are in. When Matt tells his family about his and Jennifer's disagreement when to have kids, Jennifer tries to handle the situation as best as she can. Once Jennifer cannot take enough of the ridicule she walks out. Jennifer is building a defense or a guard against threats. She feels like Matt and his family are attacking who she is, so walking away was the best option for her. After this Jennifer has to rebuild her esteem. This is the fourth form of restoring impression integrity. There was a disappointment in the situation of her offending Matt's family and she has to now offer a repair and explain why. The reason why she did it was because of what Matt did and this causes him to have to listen to Jennifer. There has to be a compromise of what can be told in their relationship. I thought this was a great case study and is a great example of why communication is so important! 