husband with off again, on again cognitive impairment, stressful

@cloudydaysue
😄stay with connect👌

@fred1
I am the one who deleted my husband's Facebook app on his phone last week. Surprisingly he has not said one word about it; I was ready for the pushback but none has come. Crisis averted so far. 😬

@judimahoney I'm sure you've done this Judy, but just freeze your credit with the three credit bureaus, and put on fraud alerts. I had to do it, my husband had so much scam on his phone and PC and was clicking here and there. I mentioned it awhile back on this site, but he was hacked into in 2024. They got into our bank accounts, credited card accounts, were setting up payments to a fictious bank called "green bank" and tried to draw from our bank accounts. Whoever, got access to his PC, was changing the outlook commands, to where he wasn't getting any email on his phone, as they took over his PC. I can't even begin to tell you how nervewracking that was, so I froze everything with the three credit bureaus. We had to cancel everything and get new accounts, new credit cards, etc.
I'm sure you know this, but it's worth sharing again. Because when the PC guy showed up for a month, he could see on the server all the sign ons from someone or a group of people that had hacked in. They showed different sign on location from all over, but as the PC guy said, it could have been the same person. I worry every day, when I see my husband on the PC and the phone, which he's on all the time. Mine isn't on Facebook, but he's up there clicking on everything else anyway. Best, Karla

@kjc48
Great idea. What a hassle, and so sorry that happened.

@judimahoney It's scary stuff Judy. I couldn't believe how long it took us to get everything straightened out. He clicked on something, got into some link and ended up, with hackers. They changed his PC multiple times, and we knew it, because it wasn't downloading to his phone. I had to go back into Experiean, Transunion and Equifax and recently do the fraud alert and freeze the credit for a year. Even with that, I'm nervous over what he's doing up there. Now, he did something that he tapped into, and his entire screen is too large and way off to the right. Gosh, I can handle a lot of things, but the technology stuff drives me nuts, because I can't fix it. I'm into our accounts tracking them, but I can't do that 24 x 7. Oh well...another day, tomorrow. Best, Karla

Hi:
One difference is that my husband only looks at the internet on his phone, not our laptop, so... he to date hasn't accessed any dangerous sites.
Currently he scrolls the internet on his phone and watches clips from old TV shows and music videos. Right now it's ok, till it isn't, right?
What a mess you had though, and probably complicated to sort out. Hugs to you.🌻

In reading everything- and thanks to everybody for all the tips and wisdom and sharing!- I feel like this time of inconsistent behavior is almost the hardest! My husband, too, has all kinds of (self-imposed mostly!) tech problems and is constantly losing and changing passwords. He's made some very radical stock moves based on what turned out to be an AI podcast, BUT he's still alert enough that most of the protective suggestions won't work. I'm scared of waiting until something catastrophic happens to use the power of attorney. Is that how it has happened for folks in this thread? If you were able to proactively freeze accounts, take away phones, prevent driving, etc BEFORE something happened- and while your spouse was still aware enough to protest.... how did you go about it?

@judimahoney
Maybe it's acceptable to gaslight another under the proper circumstances.

@shmerdloff
Gaslight = protection

@theglobalnomad1
For me, taking away my husband's debit and credit cards, and getting him to 'voluntarily' surrender his driver's license, was a screaming episode on my part with tears and yelling and an absolute insistence that this was the way things had to be because his brain was not giving him correct info and we need to be safe on the road and keep others safe (he has anosognosia, so has no awareness of his issues, which makes all this exponentially harder).
He didn't yell during this process, he just gave his usual flat affect facial expression and probably wondered why his wife was screaming and crying. Nearly getting killed by a demented driver is awful, I nearly threw up. Financial abuse is also scary; he still reports that his debit and credit cards are missing.
So, this process of taking away his independence has been heartbreaking but necessary, and I HATE making every decision by myself. It's very lonely.