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Growing up with a workaholic parent can leave lasting emotional wounds.

Adult children of workaholics may struggle with intimacy and partner selection in adulthood.

Healing begins when adults recognize workaholism as a compulsive pattern, not just hard work.

Adult children of workaholics may experience internalized distress because their struggles are less visible.

Sometimes people come into therapy saying things like, “I had a picture-perfect childhood. There weren’t any drugs or alcohol present other than an occasional glass of wine, my parents stayed together, and my dad worked hard to provide for us. So why am I struggling so much? I feel like there’s something wrong with me.”

What the person is describing is a very real effect of being an adult child of a workaholic (ACOW). There are many jokes and offhand remarks about being a workaholic, but it is a very real condition defined as a compulsion or uncontrollable need to work incessantly. Workaholism is a socially sanctioned pattern of compulsive overworking. We praise hard workers, people who succeed in their careers, but very rarely do we ask, “What is the cost?”

The cost in families is children who are depressed, anxious, and emotionally neglected, and who struggle in their relationships. And the hard part is that they have nothing to point to, unlike adult children of alcoholics (ACAs). In homes with drug and alcohol abuse, there’s an external substance that can explain behavior: “Mom gets like that when she drinks.” But for workaholism? Not so much. And what makes it even more confusing is that on the outside, the ACOW appears to have everything: a beautiful home, attendance at the best schools, extravagant vacations. But if they ever complained, they were seen as ungrateful.

“Gratitude” has nothing to do with it. A person can feel grateful for their beautiful home and still feel sad that their parent is never in it. The two do not cancel each other out. However, because of that dissonance, when everyone else sees the parent’s work as admirable, the child’s experience often goes unrecognized and unnamed. But it leaves a mark. Often, it is not what happened, but what was consistently missing.

This mark often extends into adult relationships and sexuality. Many adult children of workaholics find themselves drawn to partners who feel familiar in their emotional distance, recreating the same longing they experienced growing up. In intimate and sexual dynamics, this can show up as confusing intensity with connection or feeling more activated by inconsistency than by steady presence.

Research continues to examine how patterns of compulsive overworking impact family systems and child development, linking parental workaholism with reduced emotional availability and increased distress in children.¹ In particular, parents’ patterns of compulsive overworking can spill over into family life, increasing stress and reducing emotional availability, which is linked to greater emotional and behavioral challenges in children.¹

According to Dr. Bryan Robinson, an ACOW researcher2, in response to having been raised in workaholic homes, children may:

Shun intimacy or become enmeshed

Unconsciously pick partners who they are constantly trying to please and who are emotionally distant

Experience confusion in sexual desire, including being drawn to intensity over emotional safety

Feel empty, disappointed, depressed

Outwardly focus on conformity

Feel unworthy and incompetent for not meeting others’ expectations

Be performance-driven perfectionists

Have an underdeveloped sense of self

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A 2024 study found a moderate correlation between parental workaholism and negative emotional outcomes in children, including increased anxiety, depression, and feelings of solitude and alienation.3 In other words, parental work patterns can have meaningful emotional consequences for children.

It may look like ACOWs had “picture-perfect” lives, but as we all know, pictures can be deceiving. I’ve witnessed in my clients that they experience significant internalized distress in part because their struggles are less visible and harder to name than those of people who grew up in homes with drugs or alcohol. Their feelings of neglect turned inward. Everyone around them said, “You must be so proud of your dad for all his success,” so ACOWs felt guilty that they were not proud. They just wanted Dad to play with them. They wish he worked less.

For ACOWs to heal, they must first recognize that workaholism can function as a compulsive pattern that impacts family relationships. Money and status don’t make up for emotional neglect. As children, they needed care, emotional attunement, and co-regulation, which they didn’t get. No amount of money, fancy cars, or fun vacations makes up for that.

Lastly, it’s never too late to have the childhood they didn’t get. Through inner child work and intensive therapy, ACOWs can begin to develop a stronger sense of self, form more secure and reciprocal relationships, and experience intimacy and sexuality in ways that feel more grounded and aligned.

To find a therapist, please visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

Shimazu, A., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., Fujiwara, T., Iwata, N., Shimada, K., Takahashi, M., Tokita, M., Watai, I., & Kawakami, N. (2020). Workaholism, work engagement and child well-being: A test of the spillover-crossover model. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(17), 6213. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176213

Robinson, B.E. (2021). The Invisible Scars Adult Children Of Workaholics Bring To Their Careers. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2021/03/08/the-invisible-scars-adult-children-of-workaholics-bring-to-their-careers/

Anjum, S., Rasul, I., Khawaja, A. M., & Malik, S. (2024). Impact of parents’ workaholism on their children’s academic self-concept, anxiety, and depression: A study on private schools of Lahore. American Journal of Psychiatric Rehabilitation, 27(2). https://doi.org/10.69980/ajpr.v27i2.487

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