I created an item validator with the validation rule template. I'm using it to check if one field for a date is after another field for a date following this tutorial: https://sitecorejohn.wordpress.com/2010/03/17/validate-that-the-value-of-one-datetime-field-follows-another-with-sitecore. For some reason the item that is pulled with GetItem() in my validator does not have the change that the content editor has made until the item is saved. I thought Sitecore.Data.Validators.BaseValidator.UpdateItem would take care of this but it seems that my control to validate is null. That makes sense since it is an item validator instead of a field validator but that means that if this fires off on blur content editors may see false error messages or not see error messages when they should. I'm also running into an issue where my Evaluate method is firing twice on save; once before the item is actually saved so GetItem() returns with the non-updated values and once after save which has the expected values. If anyone has any insight as to why this might be happening I'd like to know. I have a feeling that the validator executing twice on save might be a config issue but I didn't see anything very obvious in the pipeline.
