Anisotropic damage mechanics is derived by redefining its fourth‐ranked damage tensor, bold-sans-serifD$$ \mathbf{\mathsf{D}} $$, not by its effect on stiffness reduction, but as a tensor that partitions total strain into bulk material strain and an cracking strain associated with crack‐opening displacement. This recharacterization of bold-sans-serifD$$ \mathbf{\mathsf{D}} $$ is irrelevant for 1D modeling, but significantly clarifies 3D algorithms. The new 3D derivation starts with three damage parameters associated with three independent strength models for three components of crack traction. By postulating a traction failure surface dependent on current damage state and requiring that all traction components simultaneously decay to zero at failure, the three damage parameters naturally couple to a single parameter. Many prior methods assume evolving strength depends only on damage. In real materials, strength often depends on other variables such as temperature, pressure, strain rate, and so forth. This article proposes a new general theory that extends prior methods to properly account for such external variables. The general damage mechanics methods must account for extra variables during damage initiation, damage evolution, and elastic loading and unloading. Several examples focus on the new concepts for coupling damage parameters and for using general methods to model materials with pressure‐dependent strength properties.