Ask HN: How to stop emailing my ex? Any technical solutions I could use?

just keep doing it until one of you gets tired of it.

Try some interesting for you mathematical course, maybe you are really needing to learn calculus or whatever else topic. After solving all problems from the first chapter (especially if you manage to do it without any help) you will realize that there are lots of way more interesting things than a lust.

Don't fight it, you know that "a few drinks" lets the real you out, get back with her and have some kids.

A cronjob that replaces /etc/hosts with a version that has Gmail pointing to localhost would do.

Now seriously, get help. That's the only way you'll get over it. A couple more drinks will be enough to be able to bypass your own firewall. Hope you're doing okay.

Seems like self_control.app might be the perfect solution here for both of your problems, drinking one too many and emailing the ex.

Anything you setup yourself you can bypass if you really want to, even drunk.

Either get her to shitcan your emails on her end or put a passcode/lock on your phone that is too difficult to do when drunk.

Gain some self-control? How do you think other people avoid emailing former partners?

You don't need a technical solution. You need therapy to learn better self-control.

"A few drinks..."

Stop drinking? I know it sounds dumb, but makes sense to a lot of people who do it.

Everyone around you may binge drink all the time, but not everyone does. Most people don't actually.

Reliably not doing stupid things is actually pretty nice.

Think of this situation as a warning you should not ignore. Stop drinking.

Buy this [1]. You only need to be disciplined enough to store all your electronic items (phone, tablets, mouse/kb usb receiver) into this box. You can set the number of hours etc. It's better you switch to mouse/keyboard which are unusable without usb receiver, so the receiver is dropped into the box; you have to ditch bluetooth mouse/kb.

[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00UY0TP84/ref=ppx_yo_dt...

Realize that you've just posted your dirty relationship drama to HN, be embarassed by this and get your life together.

Don't chase. Replace.

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Technical: Take her out of the 'contacts' list, forward all emails from her to the 'spam' folder.

Personal: Grow some.

Meditation apps? Calm

A technical solution is the last thing you want: if you implement a "perfect" technical solution then it removes your feeling of responsibility to try. What you need is the skills to be able to resist the behavior you want to not do. Things like therapy, meditation, CBT may help.

Not all technical solutions are bad. If you're an alcoholic don't get a job in a liquor store. But there's always going to be times you need strategies to make the right decisions.

My advice is that there is no advice, heartbreak is a difficult thing to actually deal with. Conversely you can suppress the feelings via whatever means you prefer eg alcoholism, workaholism, rage-aholism, as some on this thread appear likely to have done. Ultimately the only way out is through and this is a path unique to every person. As for the texting, just stop. There's no amount of alcohol that can make you forget that you'll regret this. More likely it's an excuse to self-flagellate, speaking from my own experience. Oh and one more piece of advice: don't ask engineers for emotional advice, we are notoriously stunted in this area.