Barthelme's relationship with his father was a struggle between a rebellious son and a demanding father.[2] In later years they would have tremendous arguments about the kinds of literature in which Barthelme was interested and which he wrote. While in many ways his father was avant-garde in art and aesthetics, he did not approve of the postmodern and deconstruction schools.
His brothers Frederick (born 1943) and Steven (born 1947) are also respected fiction writers.[2]
He married four times.[2] His second wife, Helen Moore Barthelme, later wrote a biography entitled Donald Barthelme: The Genesis of a Cool Sound, published in 2001. With his third wife Birgit, a Dane, he had his first child, a daughter named Anne, and near the end of his life, he married Marion Knox Barthelme, with whom he had his second daughter, Katharine. Marion and Donald remained married until his death in 1989. Marion died in 2011.
