I feel for you OP and I’m sorry your D has to witness this turmoil. Sounds like its been her life since she was a toddler and that is never a good thing. My ex and I had difficulty coming to mutual agreeable decisions for the first few years of my D’s life and then we co-parented well until the college search began. All has gone to …since then and we don’t speak, but that’s another thread (which I talked about and posted over several months this time last year).
I like the idea of a heart to heart with your D but then let it go. Tell her how much you can pay, what the options are, and then leave her out of the equation. These are just kids and really, if the first 15 years was so legal-intensive, you must expect the next four to follow suit. Your D can’t make her Mom do anything more than she could make you do something you don’t want to.