A new approach to model fatigue at the microscale is represented by a viscous gradientenhanced damage model. This contribution starts with the theoretical derivation of the model by means an extended Hamilton principle for dissipative processes. The dissipation function is introduced as homogeneous in first and second order. This leads to a differential inequality for the damage function. The model depicts the onset of damage once the local Helmholtz free energy is greater than the dissipation parameter, coupled with the balance of momentum and the stress which is affected by the damage function. The approach results in a regularization of the nonconvex condensed energy and, as a result, a wellposed problem that yields mesh-independent results. Then, the viscosity is not used for regularization but can be adjusted to experimental results. By using the neighbored point method the coupled system of equations for the momentum balance (partial differential equation) and the field equation for the damage evolution (partial differential inequality) can be efficiently solved numerically. A robust and fast evaluation of the system of equations can be realized by using operator split techniques and a combination of finite element and finite difference methods (FEM and FDM). After derivation of the model, finite element results, that demonstrate how the new approach works, are presented.