Why are some (most?) men reluctant to go into couples counseling when their relationships aren't working?

In the last few days and weeks, I’ve become aware of many women married to men who essentially are running away from them. It might be work or alcohol or any number of things that the men use, but they all are missing out on time with their wives and children—so much so, that their wives are getting desperate—thinking of having affairs or divorce.

I feel like I have some idea of why men run away like this. Mostly it is the usual suspects: low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy. All, of course, are related.

The best way I know of for people to start to deal with these issues is therapy. But the reports I get are either “tried that; didn’t work,” or a flat out refusal to go.

I’m looking for greater insight into why these men don’t want to go into therapy. I’m sure there’s stuff like shame and masculinity issues and mistrust of expressing their feelings or inability to express them or lack of desire to learn to deal with emotions. But I guess I have a feeling there’s more to it. Some kind of self-destructive impulse or something. Fatalism? I don’t know. Maybe it’s all that stuff and it’s as simple as that and there is no magical understanding of this problem.