Transnational marriages between families settled on the Arabian and Iranian shores of the Gulf were, until recently, a common way of maintaining ties. Nowadays, these practices have come up against state visions of family management / affairs, disparities in living standards between nationals and foreigners in the countries along the Arabian shore, and divergent development in the role of the family and the status of women within each of these societies. Meanwhile, the proliferation of globalized spaces in the Gulf cities and the diversity of migrant profiles create a context for the emergence of intimate relationships that are potentially subversive to state views of conjugal life. Such is the subject of the present article, based on field surveys conducted in Iran and the UAE between 2010 and 2013 and on a testimony collected in Dubai, about a love affair between an Emirati man and an Iranian woman in Dubai.