Why do pwBPD need total agreement with their version of events?

[Beware of Junk Psychology...]

Is it common for the pwBPD to demand that the nonBPD corroborate their version of events precisely? My H and I are divorcing. He keeps sending me the same email over and over and over again and demanding that I “acknowledge” that I am “guilty of all these things.” He wants me to acknowledge that I am guilty of “tormenting” him, “punishing” him for asking me questions about my day, and “attacking” him when he felt insecure.
Here is what I think he is referring to: When I asked him things like “Why on earth would you think I would want to cheat on you? I love you,” he considered that torment. When I became more and more wary of having conversations because every conversation about anything triggered him, I did, indeed, start avoiding conversations, which is hard on a marriage. He considered my withdrawal of conversation in the face of his rages to be a “punishment” for things like him asking me if I was exchanging secret signals with a passerby so I could hook-up with him later. What he is calling an attack was me begging him to stop drinking and get some help, and yes, that did happen every time he “felt insecure” because when he felt insecure, which was all the time, he drank himself into a rage that scared the living hell out of me.
Now he wants me to deny reality, support what he says, and deny that I was afraid of him.
No way. I was afraid of him. I won’t ever deny that.
Why does he feel the need to keep demanding over and over again that I abandon reality in favor of his delusion? Does it not occur to a pwBPD that this desperate need to have total agreement on remembered events is, in itself, a bit suspicious?

[Breathe066]

Is it common for the pwBPD to demand that the nonBPD corroborate their version of events precisely? My H and I are divorcing. He keeps sending me the same email over and over and over again and demanding that I “acknowledge” that I am “guilty of all these things.” He wants me to acknowledge that I am guilty of “tormenting” him, “punishing” him for asking me questions about my day, and “attacking” him when he felt insecure.
Here is what I think he is referring to: When I asked him things like “Why on earth would you think I would want to cheat on you? I love you,” he considered that torment. When I became more and more wary of having conversations because every conversation about anything triggered him, I did, indeed, start avoiding conversations, which is hard on a marriage. He considered my withdrawal of conversation in the face of his rages to be a “punishment” for things like him asking me if I was exchanging secret signals with a passerby so I could hook-up with him later. What he is calling an attack was me begging him to stop drinking and get some help, and yes, that did happen every time he “felt insecure” because when he felt insecure, which was all the time, he drank himself into a rage that scared the living hell out of me.
Now he wants me to deny reality, support what he says, and deny that I was afraid of him.
No way. I was afraid of him. I won’t ever deny that.
Why does he feel the need to keep demanding over and over again that I abandon reality in favor of his delusion? Does it not occur to a pwBPD that this desperate need to have total agreement on remembered events is, in itself, a bit suspicious?

[Claycrusher]

Is it common for the pwBPD to demand that the nonBPD corroborate their version of events precisely?

I'm unaware of any scientific data to support the idea that the above is a common demand.

Intuitively, it seems to me that it might be, though.  As a "non," your emotions are a byproduct of the reality you're facing in the moment.  The person with BPD, however,  perceives past and present reality based on their emotional state of the moment.  In other words, they kind of shape their present reality to fit how they feel, while their recall of history is also skewed by their present emotional state.  Disagreement with their recall is invalidating.  Agreement with it is validating. 

My BPD ex-wife craves validation so much that she'll manufacture or manipulate means to get it.  She also likes to insist on agreement with her point of view.  She gets a sense of validation from agreement. 

[UnforgivenII]

Because their emotional age is 3. No, maybe 2.

[FallenOne]

Because they need people to validate their version of reality for them so that they can feel better and know in their distorted little mind that they're right.

[bus boy]

The BPD will fabricate and create versions of their perceived wrongs, my Xw would push someone to the point where the person basically says F off and leave me alone, that would open up a whole new door for Xw to justify in her mind how she was wronged. Xw would run to me and say so and so told her to F off and expect me to defend her, go after the person who Xw pushed and pushed to the point of them telling her off. We are suppose to defend our family but I find it morally wrong to defend someone when they created the problem. This I one way Xw felt I wronged her and she would let loose her wrath on me but I don't defend wrong for anyone, family or not. Xw has continued this behaviour with my replacement, he came after me for a story she fabricated and went as far as lying under oath when this topic came up in family court. We are of no more use to them when we don't believe their fabrications

[balletomane]

I think it is connected both to paranoia and to black-and-white, all-or-nothing thinking. My ex was exactly the same, frequently bombarding me with increasingly vicious demands to 'admit' things he was sure I was up to. His paranoia made him completely confident that I really had done those things, and his black-and-white thinking meant that he could not entertain the possibility that he was wrong - he had to be right, all of the time. He has followed this pattern with all of his exes (he calls us all 'abusers' and 'tormentors' and I'm still a bit mystified that he can't see that the common denominator in all of this is him. But he is so caught up in the intense feelings that he is experiencing at this particular moment in time that he can't take a step back and consider his thoughts and behaviour with more perspective. For him, his feelings are facts. If he feels I cheated, that means I did cheat. His inability to reason differently made him determined to force confessions out of me.

[Breathe066]

Balletomane,
Once again, I feel like we were married to the same guy.  I know that BPD is a spectrum disorder and that it almost always includes other types of mental illness. With my H, one of the illnesses is alcoholism, the other is paranoia. In fact, the first therapist we went to suggested gently that he needed medication for paranoia that might have been induced by stress. No dice. He believed the therapist was getting "kickbacks from the drug company" and refused to go back. He had been diagnosed with BPD years before but said the therapist was not credentialed appropriately so rejected the diagnosis.
I am really curious about how often paranoia is a part of the BPD makeup. I will post separately about that.

[balletomane]

The second time my ex really lashed out at me, it was because he had been to the laundromat and he was sure that two of the other customers in there were wishing him dead because they thought he was too ugly to live. He said he'd seen it on their faces. I expressed sympathy over how he was feeling, but I reminded him that he'd just left his job in order to go to university for a demanding course, he'd had to move to a place where he didn't know anyone, and he was stressed right now, so it was possible all this was making him anxious and causing irrational fears. I told him that if he thought about it when he was calmer he would see that two perfect strangers have no reason to wish him dead, and that it's not possible to read thoughts like that from people's faces. He exploded at me. Five minutes later I was in tears, he was so savage. It was never enough for me to try and comfort and reassure him - I had to agree with the paranoia. Once I lied and said I did believe him when he uttered the dreaded words, "You don't believe me, do you? You think I'm making it up", because I'd become so afraid of his outbursts over this issue. My ex was diagnosed with BPD and paranoia was definitely one of his most prominent difficulties.

[Lalathegreat]

i certainly relate to this in my r/s with my BPD partner. I have become terribly afraid to disagree with him as I know it will lead to an outburst every time. And usually he is demanding that I agree to having engaged in horrible behaviors or having horrible judgmental thoughts about him.