Microsoft → Confused about Outlook.com and Windows Live accounts

Hi

I recently bought a Windows 8 phone and have spent the past couple of weeks familiarising myself with it (having come from Android) and getting it set up the way I want.

As part of this I set my email up as follows:
My GMAIL account pulls in all email from my primary (ISP provided) POP email account. I use Thunderbird as my email client, with it set up to pull mail from GMAIL, and send via my ISP address. I can now synch this to my phone to access both mail and my GMAIL calendar. All of which works perfectly, much to my surprise.

For the phone, I also need a Windows account - to access various aps/features for Windows 8. I just logged into that account to check something and discovered that the Outlook.com part of this feature is also pulling down my email (must be via GMAIL somehow). I have no idea how this even got set up, but I want to stop that from happening. The problem is, it seems that the only way to delete an email account from Outlook.com, is to completely close the account - which will also delete my Windows Live account. I need that one kept open. There doesn't even seem to be a way to leave the email account there, but tell it to stop fetching new mail.

Either I'm missing something or this is another one of those "damn you MS" moments.

Can somebody enlighten me and tell me how to do this please?

I have a Lumia 520 Windows Phone 8 device. You can select which email account(s) and what you sync in that account in settings. For example I have a Windows Live account via Hotmail and my regular Cox HSI email account. The phone is logged in with the Windows Live account but I only sync my Cox HSI email. Go to Settings > email + accounts > Microsoft account then UNCHECK the Content to sync email checkbox.

See the screen shot...

I do not use my Hotmail account, ie. my Windows Live ID, for email, calendar or contacts.

AFAIK if you want to stop receiving Gmail through your Outlook.com account that would be configured in the Outlook.com settings via a web browser.