Carboxylated nitrile rubber (XNBR) is crosslinked via metal-ligand coordination bond by simple mixing and compounding as an alternate to chemically rich traditional vulcanization route. Basis of the generation of reversible non-covalent crosslinks, in the rubber matrix, is copper (I)-carboxylate metal-ligand interaction that is evidenced by XPS, FTIR, and rheological studies. At low copper content (5 phr), self-healing property is exhibited by the composite while adequate mechanical strength is obtained at higher copper content (20 phr). For 20 phr filled composite (XNBR-Cu20), the tensile strength reaches up to 5.41 ± 0.28 MPa, which is almost 19 times higher than that of pure XNBR (0.29 ± 0.02 MPa). On the other hand, tensile strength is not so high (1.95 ± 0.20 MPa) for composite XNBR-Cu5, however, this one shows the selfhealing efficiency of around 75% for the first cycle, 71% for second cycle, and 56%for the third cycle. The positive shift of glass transition temperature (T g ) takes place with the increasing content of copper (I)-carboxylate crosslinking that is caused by the lowering in segmental mobility of the rubber chains. Reversible nature of the metal-ligand coordination, recoverability, and hysteresis in the XNBR-Cu (I) composite are studied by cyclic stress-strain loading. The CuCl content greatly influences the inherent crosslinking nature of the elastomeric network and the ultimate properties of the composites.