When work becomes your hiding place?

It's an effective hiding place because it doesn't look like hiding. It might look like ambition, responsibility or simply being the kind of person who takes work seriously. Nobody questions you and most people admire it. The language available for overwork is almost entirely positive, such as driven, ambitious, committed or dedicated and that makes you comfortable without examining too closely that work might have become a place of refuge.

Deeper exploration may suggest that work gives you something that's harder to find elsewhere. Perhaps structure, measurable progress or where problems have a solution. Home doesn't always offer these things. Relationships at home can be ambiguous, unresolvable, full of family dynamics that don't respond to what you do, the way working in teams does. Work is easier to be good at.
Truth is that work could also be an alibi. Not consciously, but functionally.

Here's how it plays out..If you're at work, you're not available for the conversations you've been avoiding. You're not sitting in a quiet house thinking about things you don't want to think about. You're not present for the tension and friction that's built up between you and your partner or the distance between you and your children that you've been meaning to address. Going to work is the easier alternative.

The tell tale signs of avoidance are usually in what happens when the work isn't there. A holiday that should be a relief and is instead agitating. A weekend with nothing scheduled that produces low level anxiety you can't account for. The inability to sit still without checking your emails or anything that constitutes a task or requires performance. Work fulfills that need.

The other sign is what you're like when you finally come home. Not the long hours themselves but the quality of your presence. You're at home but the lights aren't on. Just there, almost feeling like a lodger in your own home.

This doesn't mean that work itself is a problem. The real distinction is whether work is simply a place you go to be productive or whether it has gradually become a sanctuary.

In moments of introspection, you may know the difference. The question is what are you going to do with that awareness?
If this sounds familiar. I offer short, no pressure informal conversations to see what might help if you feel stuck.