diff --git a/src/axolotl/utils/config.py b/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
index 93a23f7738..a24eb46efc 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/utils/config.py
@@ -217,6 +217,15 @@ def validate_config(cfg):
             "sample_packing not compatible with xformers_attention. Use flash_attention"
         )
 
+    if cfg.early_stopping_patience:
+        if not cfg.save_steps or not cfg.eval_steps:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "`early_stopping_patience` requires save_steps and eval_steps to be set. eval_steps should evenly divide save_steps."
+            )
+        if not cfg.save_steps % cfg.eval_steps != 0:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "`early_stopping_patience` requires that eval_steps should evenly divide save_steps."
+            )
     # TODO
     # MPT 7b
     # https://github.com/facebookresearch/bitsandbytes/issues/25