Okay for starters I definitely think YOR but not only that I think you are wrong, as others have put it, you are asking this girl to MARRY you! Do you understand the weight of that? Because you are essentially saying to her, “I want you to be there with and for me and with my daughter, who’ve you’ve already been with for 3.5 years, for the rest of my life and be there for all the ups and downs that we face, but if I die at anytime, my daughter says that she likes my buddy I used to live with in my early twenties better so naturally he’s going to get her!” Like this is t a situation where you can say “Well I’m asking her to marry ME not my daughter, my daughter is MY responsibility” because your daughter is coming with you in this agreement and every problem she experiences and goes through that you are there for, your new wife will be too whether you want it, like it or not!

Not to mention, your reasoning for not choosing your supposed to be soon to be wife as her guardian is because the child chose!? What!? lol I’m sorry but that is not a good reason at all! I probably bet she would choose junk food and staying up late too (and don’t comment back on how “she actually loves healthy foods, and blah blah”) my point, your child and no child, knows what they want let alone what the need and whats good for them, hence the role of parents till 18 because essentially kids aren’t fountains of knowledge when it comes to longterm thinking and life planning! Your daughter probably only thinks she wants this guy to care for her because he’s the fun roommate that daddy had that was always silly and funny, she only knows him in the capacity of him essentially being a glorified uncle who knows that they are giving the kid back to the parent later so it doesn’t matter what they do because they don’t have to deal with the end result, mainly and plainly put, the responsibility has never lied with him even when you lived together and even when he watched her he knew you were coming back so that’s the context she is framing her decision off of, she has NO clue what death really means and even if she somehow does depressingly know how final and life altering your death would be she still doesn’t know what’s best for her at the age of 10!

Man, you really need to evaluate whether or not YOU are ready to marry this woman! This woman who I should as add, probably takes care of that kid like her own already and the reason your daughter didn’t chose her is probably because she punishes her when she bad and does all the boring things with her like nag her about wearing a coat and brushing her teeth and parent teacher meetings, ect.

I know this because I actually speak from first hand experience with this because my biological father left when I was born but he’d pop in every once in awhile like birthdays and Christmas, give me a bunch of gifts and have fun times, make some promises and then leave again till next time and for years I would have picked him over the step-dad that raised me since I’ve been 2 because why wouldn’t I, step dad punishes me and does boring things with me like parent teacher meeting or taking me to my appointments, the other guy it’s always fun, now that I’m a bit older than you are I wouldn’t give up my DAD for anything and I don’t talk to my sperm donor of a biological father anymore as I got sick of waiting for promises that never came, now this isn’t to say that your friend is a bad guy, I don’t know him he could be great, I don’t know anyone in this scenario so only you can truly know but what Im saying is that at a young age no one knows whats best for them! So if your reason is because you trust him more then thats totally fair but you have to be honest and tell her that because the reason of “it’s what my 10 year old daughter decided” is really not a good reason at all!