I’m sorry to hear that and that really sucks. I didn’t spend that long apart from my wife, but I did move to L.A. for 6 months back before you could do anything like video chat, texting was 10 cents a text, and even long distance was still more expensive than local calls. We did it because I got a job, but my wife had to finish graduate school. I did get to see her on a couple of trips- once her to me and once me to her, but air travel is expensive and driving three days there and back was not really a good option, so mostly it was just emails.
I’m glad we survived it and are still married and didn’t have to reconnect afterward like on a long deployment, but it also helped that we had been married for 5 or 6 years before I moved and had been dating since high school. I got lucky and found the right person, but I know that we’re a real rarity.