Abstarct: The informal adoption of instant messaging platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram for pedagogical communication in Iraqi higher education has blurred the boundaries between teachers’ professional and personal lives, creating an “always-on” work culture that poses significant challenges to EFL teachers’ professional identity. This qualitative interpretive study investigates how Iraqi female EFL teachers negotiate the tension between their professional availability and their private/domestic identities in a WhatsApp-centered learning environment, addressing a critical gap in the literature on digital role blur in post-conflict educational contexts. Guided by Identity Tensions Theory and the Mother Scholar concept, the study employed semi-structured interviews and photo-elicitation activities with seven female Iraqi EFL teachers from four public universities in Baghdad and Erbil. Thematic analysis revealed four major identity tensions: erosion of temporal boundaries, invisible workload burden, emotional labor of constant availability, and guilt of divided attention. Participants reported receiving 10–40 after-hours messages weekly, performing unrecognized pedagogical and emotional labor, and experiencing chronic guilt when choosing between professional and domestic responsibilities. While teachers employed individual coping strategies such as selective responsiveness, delayed response, and muting notifications, these proved inadequate in the absence of institutional policies. The findings underscore the urgent need for formal Digital Communication Protocols, recognition of invisible work, gender-sensitive policies, and structural supports to prevent teacher burnout and attrition in Iraq’s post-pandemic digital education landscape.