I certainly understand locking in on a particular woman and believing she is the only one. Maybe that is the problem.

Also, I think a spouse operates differently by gender and personality. I've heard it said "a man's most prized possessions are his house, his car, and his woman."

Note: It's not my situation. Not only are people not property, I'm not a possessions guy generally. I was drawn to my wife because we balance and complement one another. We live in a house we can afford and drive cars that take us from place to place without fanfare. Possessions are not the point of life. But we all know some people view it very differently.

What if a man sees the woman of his desires as a conquest, or as a superiority-affirming/status-increasing acquisition? He won't want to lose.

Another possibility: in your business example, many men see that arena as a place women don't belong, where they jockey for position. Losing to another man is an enraging but familiar part of life - guys instinctively know about gaining and losing status within the troop. But losing the game of love to a woman? That might be intolerable.

And last but never least: we can never forget men are shit at handling emotions. Not really our fault, of course, society dictates it. I'm familiar with this in the context of sexual desire. Having built up a cauldron of feelings and nerve to proposition a woman and being "shot down" - by a stranger or even his own wife - leaves a man holding a big sack of feelings he doesn't know what to do with. How they will emerge is anybody's guess.