Changing my apple ID and getting a new free apple email account

Question

I have an apple ID which was set up using a btinternet account containing my married name.  My marriage has broken down and for a number of reasons I wish to distance myself totally from my former partner, and this includes email addresses.
This would have been relatively easy to do by setting up additional btinternet email address had the account not been in his name (even though payment went from a joint account!):  only he can create additional email addresses in that account so I am snookered until I reach the end of the contract in May and can start one in my name.
I thought I had a solution, i.e. to create a free iCloud email account in my new name and auto-forward all emails from the btinternet accounts until I can re-educate all my contacts, and then close them and the contract down and move to a new provider who is a little more customer friendly!
However, I cannot find out how to create a free iCloud email account:  it seems that the Apple ID has to be an email address which is NOT an apple domain.  Do I really have to set up a free email account with someone like live or gmail in order to change my Apple ID?  I really don't want a messy solution with permanent links / forwards etc between different email accounts.  I need to end up with a single account to & from which personal emails can be sent, and to which I can have forwarded emails from my business domain account.
Any ideas:  preferably in plain English as I am not a techy!  Simple instructions like go to xxxxxxx, hit yyyyyyy, then click zzzzzzz etc work for me!
Thanks in advance
Sandi

Answer 1

Sandiwin wrote:
Thanks to both of you. I have to say that I am no clearer!  My appleID was set up for me using my married surname when I purchased the mac. I have  @me.com &  @icloud.com addresses as well which seemed to happen automatically when the apple id was registered, also using the same surname - effectively the basic apple ID used [email protected] with the yyy being my married surname, and the me.com and iCloud.com addresses were formed with [email protected].
OT:  if I need to create a new Apple ID how do I do it?  it seems to ask for an email address which is not an Apple domain already but the only ones I have are my old [email protected] which I am trying to get rid of!
So, do I have to get an email address from someone like gmail or whatever and then use that to set up a new Apple ID?  If so that seems a bit daft!  And if i do that, you're saying that I lose all the Apps purchased under the old one (so my mac compatible 'office suite' etc?) - but there's no way of changing my existing Apple ID to link to a different email address? No there is no way of changing your existing @me.com or @mac.com email address. You can try contacting Apple support to see if they can help, but if the email address is [email protected], or [email protected], not sure how it is uniquely your Apple ID (as opposed to he who shall not be named's Apple ID).
So, yes - you would need an email address from someone like gmail.
To set it up you would go to: Apple - My Apple ID
To set up iCloud on that Apple ID you would follow the intstuctions in: Creating an iCloud account: Frequently Asked Questions - Apple Support
As far as the purchases go, they will be tied to the Apple ID that they were purchased with. If that Apple ID is an Apple domain ID, then you would need continued access to that Apple ID/email address and its associated password in order to continue to update  or to re-download those purchases.
Only Apple IDs that are email addresses other than an Apple domain can be changed. For someone with an @gmail.com address as the Apple ID, the owner can go in at any time and change that email address to something else.
However, Apple domain email address cannot be changed on the Apple ID they are associated with.
I'm confused and irritated!  It's bad enough having to go through the mill trying to change names with banks, bills etc without this as well!
Cheers,
GB