TL;DR: I stopped being the project's doormat, my client noticed, and now he's suddenly trying to be nice. I'm not leaving — but I am done operating on his terms.
For most of this engagement I just stayed professional, kept my head down, and tried to deliver. But I've hit a wall. He talks me up to my face, then complains about my work to other collaborators the moment I'm not in the room. He keeps intervening in my process in ways that directly compromise the final deliverable, then blames me for the results. And the budget hasn't moved despite the scope creeping further every month.
So I stopped performing. Short, factual responses. No over-explaining. He keeps asking if everything is okay and I just say "yes, all good." Now he's panicking, suddenly complimenting work he never acknowledged before, telling people what a great collaborator I am.
Good. Now I finally have some leverage.
I don't want to walk away. What I actually want is a real conversation about increasing the project budget to reflect the actual scope, and pulling back his involvement in the execution process, because at this point his interventions are doing more damage than good.
Has anyone successfully negotiated something like this with a difficult client? How do you frame it without it turning into a confrontation?