A family can share a language while assigning different meanings to silence.

Words are the easy part of a shared language. Within one household, a pause can mean contentment to the person who grew up with quiet evenings and abandonment to the person who grew up with quiet as punishment, and neither of them knows they are translating. Most long misunderstandings are built here rather than in what was said. The dictionary is shared; the grammar of absence is not.

If a silence between you and someone close keeps going wrong, try asking what quiet meant in the house they came from. It is a gentler question than asking why they are being difficult.