Former partners accepting copper's reasons (7)
I believe the answer is:
excuses
'reasons' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both related to communication as well as being plural nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'former partners accepting copper's' is the wordplay.
'former partners' becomes 'exes' (ex-lovers).
'accepting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are accepted).
'copper's' becomes 'Cu's' (chemical symbol).
'exes' going around 'cus' is 'EXCUSES'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for excuses that I've seen before include "reasons for failure" , "Releases from a duty" , "Forgives" , "Defences of objective behaviour" , "Defences of offensive behaviour" .)