Trying to find way to avoid conflicts, if only for a day, I find myself being devious in so many ways, and it sticks in my gut. I hide his cell phone because his sits for hours, hitting the numbers, scrolling through names, calling people at all hours, sometimes accidentally. I hide his shaver because he dumps the whiskers everywhere and lost the parts to the last one, sits and shaves and shaves and shaves. (I offer to help him to expedite and clean the shaver for him). Hide his hearing aid accessories because he dumps them out all over. I hide the mail because he wants to subscribe to every magazine, donate to every charity, enter every sweepstake, apply for every refy or loan, send away for every "viagra"-type product, every prostate product. And on it goes.
She has a smart TV, many of the shopping channels are blocked. The TV goes off at 11 and won't come back on till 7.
She is constantly looking for her checkbook to buy something. She never answers the phone when it rings, so we just moved it upstairs and we get all the calls forwarded to me and my sister through the VOIP.
Hearing aides were another matter. She would pull them out and leave them everywhere. She doesn't think she needs them. We finally just stopped, they kept getting lost, it was a disaster, and they are expensive. Wireless head phones so she can watch TV and have the sound turned up so no one else is bothered.
She recently had to get an upper plate denture, it ends up everywhere. She even left it at a restaurant. Takes her "teeth out to eat". Go figure. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we cry, sometimes we rage.
This is not devious, this is protective. Think of what you do for your little children to keep them safe and prevent exploitation. This is the other end of life where we have to do the same things.
Hubs advises looking for a technology that blocks that specific cell phone getting to the cell phone tower, and instead going to a box that won't put the call through. It may be called "Cell-be-gone".
Or, you could do what Sharyn did, drop it in a glass of water (joke).
My idea was to "call forward" during certain hours, but that may be labor intensive.
You could get a dummy phone when hiding his, so he won't freak out.
Having things gone missing all the time will add to your hubs confusion and frustration, I am thinking. It depends upon his cognitive abilities, and if he becomes lucid at times.
I empathize with your frustration, and the reason I thought of putting the phone in a glass of water is that it seems so much easier than to have it end up in a trash truck, being tracked to a dump site. imo. So bad, huh? Those things can be expensive.
You so very much need some respite care.
Coping with dementia is exhausting.. I've been playing these games with my Dad for over 6 years now.. to try to keep the peace.