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I think the reason it can be so important for the betrayed to be told the details, for the wayward to remember, is that in the absence of the details, the memories, it is the betrayed who is - AGAIN - left out of the affair. The AP knows what happened, the wayward at least once knew what happened, but the betrayed is left to wonder. For me, knowing what happened takes the power away from the secrets. The secrets are where the infection spreads and grows stronger.

Alas, "I don't remember" is too commonly spoken in my world, and untreated, infections are often fatal.

A couple of points on this issue:
I totally agree that not revealing the truth can be the biggest bane for any chance at reconciling. I have numerous times shared that I think discovering a kiss maybe six months after you have been assured you have everything is more damaging that learning NOW of some kinky sex act.
So yes – "I cant remember" used as a tool to hide some fact is damaging.

However… Some issues might loom heavier for the BS than the WS. Like if asked "did you wear the tie I gave you for Christmas when you took OW for dinner" can be answered with "I can’t remember" because the WS doesn’t remember… Or they could lie with a "no" because they recalled having worn the red power-tie. Or whatever.

Or they say "I can’t remember" only to be confronted with the selfie they took and didn’t know you had. Only they haven’t really looked at that selfie for months and/or simply didn’t notice what they were wearing because it had no relevance to them.

Then there is time…
A few months a friend and I were reminiscing about an event that happened on our way back from a late movie. This was years ago… He was adamant that the movie was Young Frankenstein, whereas I was (and still am) convinced it was Blazing Saddles. We are both 100% convinced we are correct.
With time – and some say it only takes 6 months – what you PRECIEVE as true becomes true to you. This is why attorneys try to avoid witnesses except for very clear and multi-verifiable events.

I actually prefer this response when it’s honest vs. a lie made up to make me feel better. I don’t believe a cheater can forget how he felt during different points in the affair, but when asking for details irrelevant to them I can see how they’d not remember. For example "what was she wearing that night?"🤷‍♀️, "did you take her to this restaurant before or after you went here with her?"🤷‍♀️ "what did she say when you said XYZ?" 🤷‍♀️…. These answers would be hard to remember to those who don’t find them not worthy. However, questions like "how did you feel coming home after f’ing them the first time?" "Did the guilt get easier" , How did you justify your cheating?" . These answers you don’t forget.

I really don't know how to describe my memory, I usually tend to say it is very contextual. I had an EA and not a PA, but your example really landed with me as to how there are many irrelevant details that never get recorded. I remember the first time that my EA AP sent me a nude photo and I can give an approximate timeline based off context, but it's been over 6 years now and all correspondence long since deleted. The reason I can give an approximate timeline is because when that message came through with an unsolicited nude pic, I was at work. I was in a colleague's office talking with him about a couple of things I needed his help with. This colleague left the company in the summer of 2018, so it happened sometime between 2017 and him leaving the company in 2018. So, through context I have a sense of kind of when that event happened, as it was of course a significant milestone in the boundary crossing that lead to my EA...I remember the sense that it was really an escalation of what had not been that sexually charged up to that point as we were friends for a number of years before that point.

I'm not proud of that moment, in fact, that is a day I look back at now and say, I could've stopped it there. I remember that I was a mess that day mentally and emotionally and I know in the timeline about where it fits, but at this moment I couldn't tell you a more precise date because I know events that bounded it on either side such as my colleague leaving, since the message came through while I was sitting in his office and then his departure feels like it happened a few months later.

If there are waywards out there who are/were like me and they are struggling with the timeline, try to think of events in context. Maybe there was a birthday, holiday, or other special day that is memorable because of how bad you felt or how much the guilt was getting to you and you remember it ruining Thanksgiving or something along those lines. Well, thankfully, Thanksgiving happens every year in November and if you remember it was 2017 (Nov 23, 2017), well you can Google the date and line up your timeline around that date. Like maybe you and AP had sex for the first time on the day before Thanksgiving in 2017 but you don't know the date, well now with Google you can tell your BS that Wed was Nov 22, 2017 and you can piece together a timeline like that.

I think the reason it can be so important for the betrayed to be told the details, for the wayward to remember, is that in the absence of the details, the memories, it is the betrayed who is - AGAIN - left out of the affair. The AP knows what happened, the wayward at least once knew what happened, but the betrayed is left to wonder. For me, knowing what happened takes the power away from the secrets. The secrets are where the infection spreads and grows stronger.

100%. That's exactly why I grilled the hell out of my husband in the early days.

With time – and some say it only takes 6 months – what you PERCIEVE as true becomes true to you.

Also 100% this. And it's not only the WS that does this. Memories are fortified by emotions. That's why we typically only remember the big events from childhood. I would have sworn on a stack of bibles that the first words out of my husband's mouth when he confessed on DDay were "I'm in love with someone else." I recently found an old journal, and that wasn't what he said first. What he said was "This (MC) has all been a lie. I'm in love with someone else." I was floored. It probably doesn't sound like a huge deal to anyone else, but I truly didn't remember it that way. I retained what hit me hardest emotionally.