u/Bookworm9651

Edit: Thank you to everyone who replied with constructive feedback and advice, I am going to work on a strategy to demonstrate and show him the benefits, and possibly loop in someone else with experience.

I went to college, was born mid-middle class and taught from a young age the importance of saving, budgeting, etc. from my parents who, ironically, have horrible finances, terrible credit score, etc. but despite all of that, they have set me up to be very successful (imo). They took on loans to put me through college, and as a result I’ve made 6 figures+ since I was 26yo, I’m not rich, but I’m better off than most. But I come from a place of privilege, especially compared with my husband, and I think it’s necessary to acknowledge that.

My husband (40M) has a very different life experience. He was raised in a very low income household, I don’t know much about his dad, but his mom used to work 3 jobs at a time, and is now disabled, but she never went to school (not even first grade). He has dual citizenship but moved to the US when he was in middle school. He’s worked with family from a young age, dropped out of high school, and has been working ever since. Despite a lack of formal education, he is very intelligent, very hard working and that’s reflected in the fact that he makes ~100k in a managerial role, but never graduated HS or got a GED. He is financially competent, because he managed to buy a house when he was 22. Honestly, had he not done this, we would be financially much worse off because most apartment rentals are twice what our mortgage is. The trade off is, he only has about 12k in his 401k and he had about $40k in cc debt when we got married but we’ve paid that off and haven’t had issues since - he truly was just using them to get by.

We share finances, but he adamantly refuses to contribute to a 401k because he said he doesn’t believe in them, and thinks it’s better to just save money on a traditional savings account at the bank - he is against me having one also. I am whole heartedly against this line of thinking because if you’re saving money in a savings account, you’re losing money to inflation. And I’m at a disadvantage because of age… he’s 8 years older than me so he’s got 8 years minimum of retirement where he won’t have to worry about not having money because I’ll still be working. And potentially, I will have several years where I have to live without him, and if we don’t have retirement, I’m screwed. If I pass before him, he won’t have retirement and he’s screwed and I don’t want that either. If I try to bring it up, he shuts the conversation down. I know it comes from a place of not wanting to put money into something you don’t understand, and it’s easier to stick with what you know, than to learn about investing.

We save $1000/mo in a traditional savings account and I’ve convinced him to let me manage that account so I keep some money untouched, easy to access and stagger the rest in CDs so we can bear-minimum compete with inflation. The balance on that account is only at $35k which isn’t even 6 months of expenses (we live in CA everything is expensive ifyky). At this rate idk how anyone can expect to save enough to cover retirement.

This is where I need advice… basically I’ve been going behind his back since we’ve been together and been contributing to my 401k… I contribute $1500/mo and the balance is around $75k (which is behind, I’m aware, but I can’t contribute more and risk him finding out because he’ll see my paycheck is less when deposited into our account - the best I can do is wait for a raise, not tell him, and route the difference into my 401k). But obviously this involves a lot of deception that I’m not comfortable with, I hate it. I feel like I’m generally a very honest person, except for this… (and a life insurance policy for myself which he also doesn’t believe in - but if he finds out about that, he can be mad at my corpse idc). My hope is that by the time he finds out (and will undoubtedly be angry - and for the deception, I think that’s justified) I will have a substantial sum and I can show the numbers of how much money I’ve put vs how much money that money has made. Right now my breakdown is about 2/3 contributions, 1/3 earnings but I’m hoping by the time he finds out, the earnings will have exceeded the contributions…

Realistically he could find out at any point if he pays enough attention… he thinks we make the same amount of money and we don’t, he didn’t notice on our tax forms from 2024, 2025 I truly made less because I took maternity leave, if he doesn’t notice this year (2026) I can buy myself 1 more year because I’ll be taking maternity leave in 2027.

Has anyone been through similar arguments?? Should I come clean even if it causes extreme tension in our marriage (I am unwilling to compromise and not contribute to 401k)? Wait it out and hope the large sum of money will make him see that I’m right, even if it upsets him?

I want to preface this with yes, I will seek OB advice but my appt isn’t until the end of next week. Letting readers know in advance, this post has a lot of of vomit and pee content.

This is my second pregnancy (12w), and I think I might have HG but have never been diagnosed primarily because I haven’t lost 5% of body weight. My first pregnancy I had horrible morning sickness that lasted all pregnancy. I would puke all day until about 22 weeks then it went to 1-2 times a day. I would barely eat that first half of pregnancy because I would throw up that much more. I lost 4lbs the first trimester but as I threw up less, I was able to eat more. Water always made me throw up so I’d have to wait until mid day to really start drinking fluids. I mentioned all this to my OB at the time, and they said it was normal, that I hadn’t lost a lot of weight and amniotic fluid was normal, so they weren’t concerned. I did get a Zofran prescription but it was a 30-70 success each day if I could keep it down long enough for it to dissolve. My husband gave me a really hard time the entire pregnancy for my lack of eating and when our baby was diagnosed with IUGR 3rd trimester, he blamed me for my lack of eating (I had an abnormally small placenta, but I’m not sure if the two are related).

Flash forward to second pregnancy, the morning sickness started later (week 8 vs 5), and while I have less smell-aversion triggered vomiting, I feel like I’m vomiting more because I’m forcing myself to eat more. I haven’t lost any weight, it’s been stagnant. But… in doing so I feel like it’s so much harder to stay hydrated and hard to know if I’ve sufficiently absorbed my gummy prenatal before puking. My urine analysis came back positive for UTI, and “many” calcium oxalate crystals… I messaged my OB but they said they won’t address it until they get the culture back - I can see the culture results with the bacteria type and count in my Quest portal, but they can’t see it yet. Also, my urine usually looks pretty dark in the morning but gets a bit lighter throughout the day as I try my best to drink fluids. I have a different OB now so I will discuss this all with her too. Even though I’m eating substantially more than my 1st pregnancy, my husband is still critical of me that it’s not enough, not enough veggies, not enough fruit. It feels like a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation - he just doesn’t understand. I know it comes from a place of love but the blame game is hurtful nonetheless.

Anyone else been through this? For those who have been diagnosed with HG, does it sound similar or sounds like I don’t have it (wondering how much I should push the OB on the issue if the dismiss it based on lack of weight loss). Also I have no idea at what point I would need to get an IV for fluids… the internet says when you start fainting, experience confusion or haven’t peed in 8 hours but all that sounds like waiting until the situation is extremely severe to get care. I’ve asked my OB office as well but they take a while to respond.

My daughter just started grinding her teeth and it sounds horrible on her poor teeth. Anyone experience this? How do I get her to stop?