Effects of the antirotating coupling on the absorption resonances are presented for a microwave driven three-level system. It is shown that nonlinear sideband generation, selective suppression and switching between peaks and dips in the absorption spectrum are obtained as the microwave Rabi frequency is varied. A physical explanation is given in terms of the coherent superposition of an infinite set of transitions that are associated with an infinite set of dressed states, which are created by the rotating and nonrotating couplings as the equivalent bichromatic excitation.