A couple were giving each other the silent treatment. The husband realised the next day he would need his wife, the early riser in the relationship, to wake him at 5am for a business flight. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence and lose, he wrote on a piece of paper: Please wake me at 5am.

He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the husband woke up. It was 9am. He noticed a piece of paper by the bed saying: "It's five in the morning. Wake up."

In general, men are not equipped for these kinds of contests . . . but they're often the perpetrators of silent treatment. I've realised it's for different reasons than women. I've realised only lately where women use it as a strategy, silence for most men is a sign they've no idea what to say.

For their formative years, we tell the male sex to toughen up, get in there. They're called cry babies when their eyes leak. Then they become men and the women they fall in love with want them to open up. If you train for the army, it takes six weeks of boot camp. Men are locked in for years in childhood, for the most part encouraged away from their sensitivities and tears. No wonder they fall silent in arguments.

Female silences are about what we can't change. When I decide not to speak, I am basically saying I have about 100 things to say but they're all going to come in a big rush at the end of this provocation. My husband finds this a terrifying prospect and it makes him even more quiet. Lately, we've managed to get over that fence.

Twelve years ago, my husband's life collided into mine in Greece and he found himself falling in love with a woman who believes in the open display of feelings. What happens when a head-led man meets an emotions-led woman? Lots of silence in rows while they learn a different language to communicate.

Now we have a sort of emotional Esperanto which saves time and nerves. He says: "I don't know what we're talking about, can you tell me now what we're talking about?" We stop haranguing and summarise where we are. I am passionate and used to hate this interruption in proceedings to do a PowerPoint presentation. Now I get it. It's helpful to me as well as him to see where we are, how best I can get through to him, and rationalise what I'm ranting about down to basic truths.

That's a long way for us to come and it's taken a long time. We had years of silence. The male sigh during silence is a ragged, painful thing. The female one is full of pathos and wishful thinking. Here's the truth, in every silence a woman is longing to speak and won't let herself. This is why the husband in the story at the start missed his flight.

Pride is at stake. Here's what I suspect is the truth for men, in every silence a man is grateful for the ears not being burned off him, but wishing he could say the right thing to make the whole dispute dissolve.

The old saying which kept us down as kids applies here: speak when you're spoken to. As adults it takes on a new meaning, don't let rage get the better of you. Older couples who've done decades together say don't let the sun go down on a row. Because the sun will rise on silence.

- Suzanne Power