Cuppa Chai, My Dear?

Key words: Couples therapy, relationship therapy, listening in relationships, relational connection, intimacy, vulnerability , attachment

There is something quietly powerful about slowing a moment down.

When one partner says, can I talk to you? The reflex is often to work out what the other needs to hear. The right words. The reassurance. The response that might make things feel better. Something useful. Something productive.

But what if the response was simpler.

What if it sounded like, let me make you a cup of tea and let’s sit together.

This is where that cup of tea matters, it’s not about the tea but what it can signify,

I am here to sit and listen.


I am not scared of your feelings
I am not rushing you

I am not searching for answers.

I am not fixing.




This brings to mind a familiar image. A child coming home from school.
The parent says, sit down, tell me about your day.
There is a glass of milk, maybe a biscuit.
They sit together. The child speaks. The parent listens quietly but with curiosity.

Underneath that ordinary exchange is a profound message being given to the child

I missed you.

I was waiting for you.
I am here for you



In adult relationships, this is where things often become complicated. Partners are not in parent–child relationships, and yet adults are inherently children in adult clothing. Each of us arrives in a relationship shaped by early experiences of love, loss and childhood bonds. The ways we learned to attach, the ways we learned to protect ourselves, the way we learned to survive. None of this disappears simply because we are grown.

When one partner says, can I talk? they are rarely asking for advice or reassurance. More often, they are asking,

are you interested in me?
Do you care?
Can you stay with me while I speak? 



Saying, let me make you a cup of tea, communicates something essential.

I am here.

I care about you.
I am willing to be curious.

I am interested in what you have to say.



Learning and Unlearning



This is where learning and unlearning take place.



Learning

how to sit with another person without rushing ahead.

Learning that listening does not require solutions.

Learning that presence itself carries meaning.



And unlearning.

Unlearning urgency.

Unlearning the need to please.

Unlearning the belief that something must be fixed.



This learning and unlearning is not a quick fix. You do not know what the next day will bring, let alone the next hour.



Mentally, there is an inherent vulnerability in all of us, and depending on our experiences, we develop ways of defending ourselves against exposure to both the internal and external world.

Each person brings their own history into a relationship, moments of connection and moments of rupture, which shape how closeness is experienced and how vulnerability feels.

To sit together without rushing towards answers is to recognise this. It asks for patience. It requires tolerating uncertainty. It involves learning how to stay and unlearning the impulse to control what emerges.



If partners are able, even briefly to perceive one another through a lens of care, softness, and kindness, something can shift. Not by creating parent–child dynamics, but by recognising vulnerability where irritation, withdrawal, or frustration often sit.

What might change if listening did not require having the right response.
If being there was enough.

This is where meaningful relational work lives. In learning how to stay alongside another person without shaping their feelings. In allowing space for expression without demand. In choosing attention over urgency.


A cup of tea cannot solve anything.
But it can create the conditions for something essential,

To be heard.

To be met.

To feel that someone is there.



This is not a quick fix, but an ongoing relational process