The contact that you are engaging in now is great. The writing, the visits and the phone calls are showing him you care. He will be away a long time and this is going to get tougher on you as the time passes. We highly recommend sending magazine and newspaper subscriptions as the frequency of incoming mail is very soothing. If he likes to read, get him hooked on books. He can either read different genres with different authors OR get into some educational programs that will make him better prepared for his re-entry. You will never be accused of "doing too much", maybe the reverse as times goes on... Here is the stuff you don't want to hear: Inmates doing long stretches are going to go through mood changes and challenge your loyalty over and over again. You will be accused of cheating on him many times even though you haven't. This will get tiresome and you will question yourself, "what am I doing?" What actually happens in the high majority of the time is that the woman will ride the sentence out with their man, keeping their life on hold, spending most of their money on commissary and phone calls and within a few weeks of their release, the relationship will fall apart.