Dear Sangita: I want to make a New Year’s resolution — but for my boyfriend. I need him to stop sports betting. He’s always been obsessed with watching sports, but he’s taken that to a new level with all this sports betting. Now, when he hangs out with his friends, that’s all they do. I don’t even care so much about the money. I just think he’s getting obsessed, and it’s taking up way too much of his time. How do I make 2026 the year of no sports betting? — Betting blues
Dear Betting: This is becoming an addiction for him, and how do you deal with people who have addictions? It comes down to them figuring out for themselves that they do have one. You can help him through this, but it will be on him to realize that this is a problem. He probably hasn’t won a lot, and the feeling right now is that he’s trying to catch up — or he has won a lot, and he’s on a high that he keeps chasing. You can help by doing some research into programs or supports available for addiction, specifically gambling addiction. Unfortunately, it’s likely he’s going to be upset with you when you do acknowledge it, but that’s on him, and at least it will be out in the open between the two of you. It may eventually be a wake-up call for him that if this is how you feel about it, maybe it’s getting out of control. At the end of the day, you’re both going to get hurt by this: of course, there will be a loss of finances, but if this keeps escalating it could be the loss of a relationship. And it’s great that you’re noticing this now — you want to catch it early, before it gets worse for him.
Dear Sangita: My husband was mandated back into the office, and now he treats me like his stay-at-home wife. The thing is, I’m working full time from home. When he worked from home, he was always too busy to get any laundry or dishes or cleaning done. Now that he’s out of the office, he comes home and makes snarky comments about how the dishes are still in the sink or the laundry is still in the hamper. How do I get him to stop being so annoying? — Remote, not unemployed
Dear Remote: He’s an a**hole! It sounds like he didn’t even help out around the house much when you guys were both working from home, so he never learned his lesson. He might have been used to you taking care of him when you were both at home, because one of the things that women often do is say, “You know what, I’ll just get it done. He’s not going to do it.” But you can’t keep doing that. It infuriates me to hear of partners like this. Relationships and marriage are a team effort. It’s 2025, so clean up your act! I think he really needs to step up. He needs to be that husband, he needs to be that partner, and I can’t believe he hasn’t seen it yet. It comes down to having that conversation with him, saying, “Listen, I work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., just like you do. Maybe on Tuesdays, you cook, and then on Wednesday, I cook, or you do laundry this week, and I do it the next.” Have something like that in place, so you can work as a team — and so that you make it clear to him that you are both unavailable to do household chores during working hours, no matter where you’re working from.
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More from Sangita:
Dear Sangita: My husband discovered I was having an affair, but since it happened he hasn’t mentioned it at all and is weirdly pretending like everything is the same. We have to talk about it, and I know he’s probably hurt. How do I get him to open up?
Dear Sangita: I’m engaged to a married man. He was supposed to have mailed in the paperwork before he proposed to me, but I found out after that some documents were missing when he did. Was I wrong for calling off the wedding?
Dear Sangita: My mom is going through what some might call a mid-life crisis since divorcing my dad, and it’s giving me a lot of stress! I’ll call her at 11 p.m., and she’ll be getting ready to head to an all-nighter club. I want her to be happy, but I also want her to be safe. What should I do?
