My partner does know about it - he used to be more put off by it because he didn't like my ex-boss when he was still my boss. I asked him again because this came up on the forum and he said it doesn't bother him. My partner also knows about the decoy email account and thought it was clever / not a bad thing.

ex-boss only tells me to calm down if I am really actually hypomanic and he's worried for me that I'm going to do something I'll regret, not to ask me to stop emailing him in that case. I've specifically told him that sometimes I get really upset and I think sending him an email might help, and he told me he was glad to have me email him if it helped me to get it out, even if he couldn't offer advice. Last time I stopped emailing him for 3 months (in post-mania depression), his wife emailed me and asked me if he'd done something wrong (and to check on me)... then I started emailing him again. Honestly, it bothered me much more than it bothered him- because I do it when I am not hypo or manic, and it makes me feel very needy (probably if I were manic, I wouldn't know the difference/feel entitled). He hasn't asked me to email less, I just realized I didn't like how much I was doing it. So this works well for me.