This paper addressed the energy-efficient resource management problem of an amplify-and-forward relay-assisted bidirectional relay system under a quality-of-service (QoS) constraint. The objective is to develop a holistic resource management algorithm for joint implementation of relay selection, power adaptation and bit-rate management for optimal energy efficiency (EE). A three-stage approach is proposed to solve the energy-efficient resource management problem. At stage 1 (stage of power management), a per-subcarrier energy-efficient problem is investigated, leading to a power adaptation algorithm for maximizing the system EE and ensuring the required level of the system QoS. Within the framework of the power adaptation algorithm and by exploiting spatial diversity of multiple-relay channels, distributed relay selection is investigated at stage 2 (stage of relay management). Next, the bit-rate management problem is tackled at stage 3, namely assigning bit rate to different subcarriers to maximize the system EE further. Finally, summarizing the results achieved at the three stages, a novel EE technology combined with relay selection, bit-rate management and power adaptation is developed. Simulation results validated the correctness and the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. It is shown that the proposed algorithm can significantly reduce the total transmit power of the system while ensuring the required system QoS.