Forgiveness and love work hand in hand, each are a compliment and a requirement for the other. Love without forgiveness can make a heart bitter. Forgiveness without love, leads to detachment and the loss of relationship.
One side of forgiveness is about letting people, plus the pain go and the other side is about restoring. Like a broken bone, healing occurs through a process of restoration, bit by bit, until the bone matches its original strength.
Love too, has dimensions and phases. A small child will express unconditional love for a parent, for a season. As the child becomes more mature, loving the parent is expressed through the filters of pain and experience.
The love remains, but requires both repentance and forgiveness, for it to be sustained. You often hurt the ones you love most, the most. This is were you must find unique and creative ways to forgive.
1 Peter 4:8
And most of all be warm in your love for one another; because in love there is forgiveness for sins without number.
I Might Be a Prophet 