My Brother’s New Girlfriend Wore My Wedding Dress To My Dad’s Birthday. She Claimed She Was Pregnant With My Husband’s Baby. How Do I Stop This Lunatic?

Processing the Trauma

When both police cars finally pulled away, Kyle dropped into one of the dining room chairs like someone cut his strings. He put his head in his hands and started apologizing to Dean and me over and over, saying he should have believed us from the start, that he was an idiot for falling for her lies.

Dean sat down next to him and put a hand on his shoulder but didn’t say anything because what could you say to that? My mom walked over and pulled out the chair on Kyle’s other side.

She told him that manipulative people are experts at making you doubt reality, that it’s what they do best. Then she got up and went to her desk in the corner of the living room. She came back with a small notebook.

She’d been keeping detailed notes of every incident Kyle had mentioned. Every time Rachel showed up somewhere she shouldn’t be, every blocked number Dean told us about. Mom said she suspected Rachel was building towards something exactly like this and she wanted evidence ready.

Kyle looked at the notebook full of dates and times and locations, all written in mom’s neat handwriting. The rest of the evening turned into this weird processing session where everyone who’d been at the party stayed and talked about what they’d witnessed.

My dad’s coworker mentioned he’d noticed Rachel positioning herself to always be in Dean’s line of sight during dinner. Mom’s friend from book club said Rachel had completely ignored Kyle for the last hour before her announcement, acting like he didn’t exist.

One of our cousins pointed out that Rachel had been taking photos of Dean all night on her phone, pretending to take party pictures but always zooming in on him. Every person had noticed something off about her behavior, but nobody wanted to say anything during the party because it seemed too weird to be real.

Dean and I finally left around 11:00 when things started winding down. We drove home in silence for the first few minutes before Dean admitted he’d been more scared than he let on. The escalation from showing up at his gym to faking a pregnancy felt dangerous to him, like she was losing touch with reality faster than any of us realized.

He said he was relieved it finally exploded publicly where everyone could see her delusion instead of her doing something worse in private. I reached over and held his hand while he drove, and we didn’t talk much after that because there wasn’t much left to say.

The next morning, my phone rang at 7:00 and it was Kyle calling to tell us Rachel had been texting him non-stop since the police dropped her off at her apartment. He’d been awake all night reading her messages that alternated between desperate apologies and wild accusations.

The Restraining Order

She claimed we’d set her up at the party, that the pregnancy test was real and we’d somehow switched it, that Dean was lying about everything to protect his reputation. Kyle forwarded me some of the messages and they were completely unhinged, full of caps lock and random accusations that made no sense.

Dean and I sat at our kitchen table and decided right then that we needed to document everything and file for a restraining order. We spent the whole morning gathering evidence, pulling up all the blocked numbers from Dean’s phone, taking screenshots of every text Rachel had sent him, and writing down witness statements from everyone at the party who’d seen her behavior.

Kyle came over around noon with his own documentation about Rachel’s stalking pattern, including the times she’d lied to him about Dean pursuing her.

Two days later, we were sitting in the courthouse waiting area surrounded by other people who all looked tired and stressed. A victim advocate came out and called our names, led us back to a small office. She sat down across from us and listened to the whole story without interrupting, taking notes the entire time.

When we finished, she told us she’d seen similar obsessive behavior before in her work. She warned us that Rachel might escalate further before accepting that her fantasy wouldn’t become reality. That restraining order sometimes makes stalkers more desperate before they finally back off.

The temporary restraining order got approved that same day based on all the stalking evidence we’d brought. The judge looked through Dean’s phone records showing the blocked numbers, read the witness statements from the party, and listened to Kyle’s testimony about the manipulation.

Rachel was now legally required to stay 500 feet away from Dean, me, our home, and Dean’s workplace. The advocate gave us copies of the order and told us to keep them with us at all times in case Rachel showed up somewhere.

Escalation and Arrest

Kyle moved back in with our parents that week because he couldn’t stand being in the apartment he’d shared with Rachel. He told mom he felt embarrassed and angry at himself for not seeing through her manipulation sooner, for believing her lies about Dean. Mom set up his old bedroom and told him to stay as long as he needed.

48 hours after the restraining order was served, Dean’s office building security called him to say someone matching Rachel’s description was in the lobby asking for him. Security had already called the police when she refused to leave after being told Dean wasn’t available.

Dean stayed in his office on the third floor while security kept Rachel contained downstairs. Two police officers arrived within 10 minutes, recognized Rachel’s name from the restraining order in the system, and arrested her right there in the lobby. She spent that night in jail before her parents bailed her out the next morning.

Two days after Rachel’s arrest, Kyle called me around noon sounding exhausted and confused. He said Rachel’s mother had just spent 40 minutes on the phone with him apologizing and crying. The woman admitted that Rachel had done this before with other men, that she’d had what she called “obsessive episodes,” and that the family thought therapy was helping control it.

Kyle’s voice shook when he told me that Rachel’s mom said they’d hoped the therapy was working, but clearly Rachel had stopped taking it seriously. The conversation got worse from there because Rachel’s mother revealed details about Rachel’s past that made our situation feel even more disturbing.

She explained that two years ago, Rachel became fixated on her own sister’s husband, a man who was happily married with three kids and had never shown Rachel any interest whatsoever. Rachel convinced herself they were soulmates despite him being completely unavailable and uninterested in her.

She’d shown up at their house constantly, sent him gifts, tried to insert herself into family events, and told people they were having an affair when nothing had ever happened between them. The sister’s family had to get lawyers involved, and eventually Rachel’s parents moved her to another state, hoping the distance would help her move on and start fresh.

Kyle felt sick hearing all this because it meant Rachel’s behavior with Dean wasn’t some weird anomaly but an actual pattern she’d done before.