When I spent an extended time away from my now ex-husband I we talked on the phone quite a bit, but I still missed him greatly, so I bought a little journal. At night before I went to bed I wrote him a letter in a little journal, one for each day we’d been apart for a total of four months. I’m not sure if he appreciated it because we split up shortly thereafter, but it definitely allowed me to feel closer to him while we were apart.