I don't think that the ponn far is a literal "mate or die" in most cases, after all spock didn't with T'pring, and he was fine. I think it is more like the '
musth' that male elephants go through. A time when the hormones are surging to prepare the Bulls to compete for sexual dominace, and as a result they get very aggressive and irritable.
Which describes the vulcan experiance fairly well. In short, they are just incredibly horny and in the grips of the natural equivilent of a 'Roid Rage'.
Elephants don't die from it, biologically speaking. Unsated it burns itself out after awhile. Mating and/or fighting can shorten the effects.
Which is pretty close to what vulcans seem to go through as well. If they can have sex, the condition ends fairly quick. The hormonal urges sated. If they can't, they either have to try and endure it (relying in meditation to avoid lapses in emotional control) and pursue alternative treatments (foods, medications, perhaps even self-stimulation) to deal with the hormonal and nuerochemical changes until it ends of its own accord, or fight for dominance (the various biochemical effects of a life or death battle presumably signalling the body to end the cycle). The risk of death would be for those who can't manage it or find a mate or battle.
Now most female animals on earth go through their own hormonal surges, usually known as 'Rut' or 'heat'. Where their bodies start producing tons of hormones to help trigger ovulation and prepare the body for pregnancy. During which they also tend to go through emotional changes, irritability, etc. Though not usually as bad as Musth can be. Their hormonal changes also result in a change in scent, and often various visual changes as well. Which tend to trigger hormonal states in males as well, leading to dominance displays and/or battles, etc. (It is notable that humanity seems to be one of the few animals on earth which do not go through such a heat cycle, instead having subtler changes during times of fertility.)
It is likely that the vulcan evolutionary ancestors evolved a long period between fertility as a result of the harsh desert conditions of their world. With so few environmental resources, any fast reproducing creature would tend to exceed the capacity for the land to support it and risk extinction. So slower reproducing creatures would be selected for. Very likely most animal lifeforms on vulcan are extreme
K stetegists, devoting a lot of time and effort into ensuring the survival of a small number of offspring.
The vulcan evolutionary ancestors probably got by initially with non-synchronized pon farr cycles..dominance fights during male pon farr, possibly over groups of females (not unlike gorilla social dynamics) and mating whenever the female members of a group went through theirs.
Once they gained intelligence and civilization, and developed their psychic traits, they ritualized the whole affair, and likely found that a male and female that had a mental connection ended up with synchronized cycles.. which would make maintaining a civilization a lot easier. Odds are said bonding process is also how they ended up being monogamists in terms of marriage.
Now, T'Pring seems to have been rather more level headed than spock was.. I'd guess that either the female pon farr isn't quite as strong as the male one, or something about Spock's half human nature (be it biochemical or just mental) made it harder to control the effects. Personally I'd lean to both.. the full Vulcans we've seen go through it didn't seem to have as much trouble as spock did, but at the same time i could see the hormonal effects being different for vulcan women. After all if vulcan women got as battle crazy as the men, the odds of them surviving to bear a kid is going to be lower, so those with a genetic tendency towards extreme effects likely would be weeded out of the gene pool. (Since the guy is mostly just a genetics donor biologically speaking, if he dies after or during the process it isn't as evolutionarily limiting)
T'Pol got pretty agressive but hers was an artificially induced one, so likely atypical. Plus her emotional control was flawed like most vulcans of the time due to the corruption of surak's teachings during the time before the kirshara was found. So her ability to control herself in the face of the changes would have been weaker.
As far as how spock got by post TOS? I would presume that he used a mix of that kohlinar training to manage the control, and being unbonded, sought out companionship as needed. Though the possibility that after his genesis ressurection his 'biological clock' got reset and he was able to go longer before it became an issue would be interesting. Especially if what savvik did during the 'puberty' phase of his accellerated rebirth counted as being bonded. Assuming that its effects survived the katra being put back in. Of course the novels had him marry savvik by the time of the Enterprise C..
