Dissipative perturbations of strongly nonlinear oscillators that correspond to slowly varying double‐well potentials are considered. The method of averaging, which describes the solution as nearly periodic, fails as the trajectory approaches the unperturbed separatrix, a homoclinic orbit of the saddle point, significantly before it is captured in either well. Nevertheless, perturbed initial conditions corresponding to the boundary of the basin of attraction for each well, which are the perturbed stable manifolds of the saddle point, are accurately determined using only the method of averaging modified by Melnikov energy ideas near the separatrix. To determine the amplitude and phase of the captured oscillations after crossing the separatrix, a transition region is constructed consisting of a large sequence of nearly solitary pulses along the separatrix. The amplitude and phases of the slowly varying nonlinear oscillations away from the separatrix, both before and after capture, are matched to this transition region. In this way, analytic connection formulas across the separatrix are obtained and are shown to depend on the perturbed initial condition
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