absence makes the heart grow fonder

Definition 
Your affection for those close to you—family and friends—increases when you are parted from them: "… meantime he exhorts me to the exercise of patience, 'that first of woman's virtues,' and desires me to remember the saying, 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder,' and comfort myself with the assurance that the longer he stays away the better he shall love me when he returns" (Anne Brontë, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 1848). The proverb was first recorded c. 1850, but the sentiment is expressed in earlier literature—for example, by James Howell (1593?–1666), who wrote "Distance sometimes endears friendship, and absence sweeteneth it." Compare Sextus Propertius (c. 54 B.C.–A.D. 2), "semper in absentes felicior aestus amantes [passion is always warmer toward absent lovers]."