27F struggling with what kind of relationship to have with my parents (60F) and 58(M) after years of feeling blamed and now being expected to be there for them

I’m a 27-year-old woman, and my fiancé and I are planning to move from New York to Florida. As the move gets closer, I’ve been thinking a lot about what kind of relationship I want to have with my parents going forward.

For some background, growing up I often felt like I was the problem in my parents’ eyes. A lot of conflicts were framed as being because of my attitude, my choices, or my reactions. Whenever my parents fought, I was often made to feel like something I did was the reason for the tension. I spent a lot of time feeling like I was the difficult child and like it was my responsibility to fix things.

When I moved out for college at 17, our relationship actually improved somewhat because we had more space. However, when I moved back home briefly at 21, many of the same patterns returned. After six months, I made the decision to leave because living together was no longer healthy for me.

Over the years, I’ve noticed a pattern where my mom has had major conflicts with different people in her life, and many of those relationships have become strained or ended. For a long time, I felt like I was the person being blamed or expected to change. Now that she is having serious conflict with my brother and other family members, I feel like the expectation has shifted onto me.

It feels like I went from being “the problem” to being the person who is expected to step in, provide support, and fill the space left by other relationships.

The hard part is that I don’t want that responsibility anymore.

I don’t want to spend my life being my mom’s emotional support system or feeling responsible for fixing her relationships and her loneliness. I want to be able to build my own life with my fiancé, especially after we move, without feeling guilty that I’m not doing enough for my parents.

At the same time, I don’t want to completely cut them off. I do love them, and I would like to have some kind of relationship with them. I just don’t know what a healthy relationship looks like when I don’t want to be responsible for their happiness.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation? How do you maintain a relationship with parents while still having boundaries? Is low contact a reasonable option, or am I being selfish for wanting some distance?