After me being single for 15 years, my new boyfriend proposed on Christmas Day

Aysha Aziz, 60, a retired businesswoman from London, was divorced and had been single for 15 years when she met Neil, a retired GP from Newcastle. They got engaged on Christmas Day 2021, after just seven months together. Here's her heartwarming story of finding love in later life...

It’s November and already, my partner Neil is busy wrapping his Christmas presents. Soon he will be putting up his Christmas trees. He has not one, but three of them, so big, they take an age to decorate.

Neil is a real 'Christmas person'. I never used to be, but everything changed on Christmas Day 2021, when we got engaged. Now, Christmas is an extra special time for us and I can’t wait to spend this year with my now fiancé.

Neil swept me off my feet. If you’d have told me when we met in May 2021 that we’d be engaged by Christmas, I would never have believed you. But then, I think that when you’re older, you know much sooner if they’re The One.

I’ve been married twice. The first time I was only 20 and too young to know what I wanted, and the second, he walked out when I refused to support his lack of responsibility.

That was why I’d been single for 15 years when I met Neil. I did date in that time, but I was a single parent juggling three kids and a full-on hair salon business, so relationships had to take a backseat. Plus, I had to protect my kids from any more failed ones.

Looking for love

Then, just before lockdown I sold my business. My kids had grown up and had their own lives and partners by then and I was lonely. I thought right, now it’s my turn.

I’d had two previous marriages: one where I was much too young to know what I wanted and the second one which he ended after I refused to support his drinking and lack of employment. I had also had 40 years of being a businesswoman, I knew if I wanted to make a success of a relationship, I had to give it one hundred per cent.

That’s why I joined Sara Eden dating agency. I had tried other ways of meeting men but they were never successful, and something told me that if you paid to be a member, you’d get the right calibre of men – those who were serious about meeting someone.

I went into it determined to find my man and fall in love no matter what, and I wanted someone who wanted that too.

Whirlwind romance

Choosing who I wanted to be introduced to, I picked out Neil straight away but was told he was taken.

So, I dated another guy for a while but then lockdown happened and that fizzled out. Then, when I came back after lockdown, Neil popped up again.

I thought, the universe is trying to tell me something, I am definitely going for this now! The only issue was, Neil lived in Newcastle and I lived in London.

However, Neil was willing to meet me halfway and I believe you can’t have everything. If this was meant to be, we’d get over obstacles in our way – and so we did.

We met for the first time in Kings Cross station, London, in June 2021 and immediately hit it off. For four months then, every single weekend, Neil travelled to London and we stayed in a hotel – it was wonderful.

We fell in love very quickly. Neil said he was worried women wouldn’t like him because of his baldness but at that time of life, I wasn’t looking for looks so much as a good person.

I wanted the whole package but the package looked different to in my 20s and 30s. We weren’t going to be sharing kids and a mortgage. I wanted a companion – and a lover, obviously – but someone to share experiences with.

The fact that Neil was such a gentleman who treated me right was so attractive to me. I couldn’t have cared less about the baldness – having hair wouldn’t have made him a better person.

He completely wooed me: flowers, dinners, everything I’d hoped for. Neil made me feel like a woman again. I’d been single for so long I’d stopped making an effort but he made me feel sexy. It was so nice to do my hair and make-up and dress up for dates. He gave the relationship three hundred percent – he still does.

Meeting my family

Despite falling for each other fast, I wanted to get to know Neil and meet his family before I brought him home. I have adult children and I wanted to tell them this man is serious. We’re not just going to be ‘dating’.

He actually said he wanted to marry me about a month into the relationship which I was taken aback by, but in a good way, because I knew he was serious. So, I knew marriage was on the cards. I just didn’t think he’d propose at Christmas.

We had a holiday booked to Jamaica in January, so I thought he might do it then, but it turned out he couldn’t wait that long.

The proposal

As Christmas 2021 was our first Christmas, I wanted to spend it with Neil and his family in Newcastle. On that Christmas morning, we were all in the conservatory, around the 9ft, beautifully decorated tree, opening gifts.

The turkey was in the oven, everything felt festive. We’d all opened our presents when, unbeknown to me, Neil told his two children and son-in-law to make themselves scarce. Then he said: "I have one more present I forgot to give you."

He went up to his study and came back with a beautifully wrapped gift. I unwrapped it and it was a wooden box with the words, ‘I love you to the moon and back’ etched on the top.

We had seen it at one of those festive fairs in the November, and Neil had bought it for me saying he’d give it to me for Christmas, but I’d forgotten all about it.

I opened it up and inside the box was another box, and inside that, was the ring.

Neil was sitting beside me and just said, "Will you marry me?" and I said "Yes"!

We were both tearful – it was very romantic – and then we were opening the champagne and messaging everyone, me saying, "Look what I found in my cracker!"

I video-called my children and we told Neil’s family – everyone was so pleased for us.

It was overwhelming. This man I’d met in May had just proposed to me on Christmas Day! But I knew it was absolutely right. What difference did it make if it was today or in a few months?

It turned out he had got me two cards: one said 'Merry Christmas to my girlfriend' and the other one, 'to my fiancée'. He’d kept the fiancée one back until I’d said yes!

Moving in

For months after getting engaged, we took it in turns to visit each other every weekend, but it was tiring and we wanted to wake up together, and so, in September, I moved to Newcastle to live with Neil.

I wouldn’t say I am surprised it worked out like this, because I was very determined. But it does go to prove, I think, that if you want to find love, you have to go out there and make it happen. It’s not coming to you.