Family therapy might be useful to help you work out a plan with the family on how to handle things, and what solutions can be found - because they're expressing that their needs aren't being met by you when you're in a depression or hypomania.

It's like anything else - finding some sort of balance to best meet everyone's needs. Sometimes someone else's needs simply do come first, but when it becomes a regularly recurring thing then people will eventually feel resentment. What they are likely seeing is that for good chunks of the year your needs are coming before their collective needs. Which is understandably not fair.

At the same time, they don't understand how depressions and hypomanias work; it will help them to see how you're trying to meet their needs even amidst the rollercoaster. Therapy will help them (and you) see how and what you do that demonstrates your caring for them, and therapy will help them to understand your limitations and what they can do to help meet you in the middle so that everyone can get as much of their needs met as possible.

I agree with Christina about the faking it till you make it push. I do that a lot when I am depressed - I might absolutely not want to do something, but I drag my sorry butt out there and do it anyway for other people. Not all the time mind you, but more than I'd want to. I do things like that on my better days; my friends by now are accepting of the fact htat there are days where I just simply will be like "yeah no I can't go." But, I recognize that it isn't fair to them so I make myself compromise - I'll even initiate some 1:1 time that I may not really want but I want to do my best by them to still show that I care. It's exhausting sometimes.

When you make promises while hypomanic, I think it's important for you to work on fulfilling those promises once you're out of the hypomania. It might take longer than you led them to believe depending on what it was, but you should work towards it anyway when you're stable. You're unintentionally teaching your children not to trust you.