The auditing profession is characterized by intense time pressures, legal liabilities, hierarchical structures, and high-performance expectations, all of which create conflict between professional roles and personal life. For female auditors, this conflict takes on more complex dimensions due to the intersection of professional demands with family expectations and prevailing gender norms. Using an interpretative phenomenological approach, the present study explores the lived experiences of 19 female auditors working in audit firms in Isfahan regarding work–life conflict. Data were collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews using purposive and snowball sampling, and were analyzed based on Colaizzi’s seven-step method. The findings indicate that work–life conflict in Iran’s auditing profession is driven less by individual shortcomings in role management than by three structural features: severe and inflexible time pressure; the persistence of legal risk and accountability requirements; and the dominance of informal male networks that reinforce an “always-on” norm. These conditions are associated with longer working hours, constrained use of leave, reduced meaningful participation in family life, psychological and physical exhaustion, and weakened social relationships. To sustain their professional participation, the participants resort to strategies such as time management, role boundary-setting, seeking family support, self-care, and individual resilience. The results show that female auditors’ work–life conflict is a structural, cyclical, and gendered phenomenon that intensifies during peak work periods and calls for a reconsideration of workload distribution, greater flexibility, and stronger organizational support.