Depends on whom you ask. Neuroscience research has found that close physical contact (sex) causes the brain to release a hormone called oxytocin — the same hormone that’s released in a mother’s brain when she breast-feeds a child. Experts believe that oxytocin creates feelings of love and bliss in the brain and strengthens interpersonal bonds (although the hormone is stronger in women than in men). So if a couple must spend long periods of time apart from each other, it’s possible that the separation will interrupt this bonding process.

But human relationships are more than a collection of neurochemicals, and the women Real Simple talked to said time away does make you care more. Like Melanie Abner, a 30-year-old mother of three from Corydon, Indiana, whose husband, Steve, just returned home after 14 months at Camp Bucca in the southernmost part of Iraq. An army reservist, he has been deployed twice (with a third deployment coming this year) during their eight-year marriage. “When you miss someone, it makes you evaluate your relationship and focus on what you love about them, things you take for granted when they’re there,” says Abner. “And you express things that you don’t say all of the time when you’re together. Plus, you don’t have a chance to irritate each other with little everyday stuff. All you’ve got is the good stuff.”