Can my mac recover email be the same as my user id email?

[trvr.clements]

The title post pretty much says it all. Can my mac recover email be the same as my user id email? Right now my recover email is an old email that I don't use anymore. I'd like it to be my main email which is my gmail account. It doesn't seem to want to accept that when I try to change it. I'm thinking perhaps the reason is that my main email address is also my user id. Can anybody confirm this or tell me if there is a way around this?

 

[yogi]

Your Apple ID username has to be a valid e-mail address and you can provide Apple woth additonal addresses to reach you.

Go to AppleID.apple.com and log in. At the top, you should see your Apple ID and next to that "reachable at". These adresses would be used in case of a recovery.

As far as I know, you need to provide an alternate address as the Apple ID could be linked to an iCloud mail account, in which case you couldnt access your mail if you forgot your password.