I will give you an example involving my own relationship with my family.

My family does not see the me that I am today.

They see me as a series of snapshots they collected from moments long ago.

Surely you are a different person from the person you were just 5, 10, 15, or 20 years ago, as am I.

We are not static creatures in a state of arrested development.

I can easily imagine scenarios where two people believed they were legitimately in love years ago, however, as time passed and experience accumulated, the two people who were once in love drifted apart and their ability to commune with one another degraded as a result.

Then there's the ultimate issue which is that most people don't even understand love in the first place. Love, specifically unconditional, universal love, is necessary for activating the heart chakra. Practicing the Golden Rule is a great way to activate the heart, throat, and 3rd eye. Most people do not activate any higher chakras because most people do not understand the essence of the Golden Rule. I can say that because basically every major religious tradition on the planet has a variation of the Golden Rule which tells us 2 things:

1. It's important for spiritual evolution

2. People suck at it. If people were fantastic at abiding the Golden Rule, it would be unnecessarily redundant for every religion to be pushing it.