The alternating direction method of multipliers has become in recent years the most widely used proximal method for signal processing. In this paper, we lay the groundwork for a new notion of proximity and use it to illustrate that the method (ADMM) is actually somewhat of a maladroit rearrangement of a new, more practical procedure that generalizes the Douglas-Rachford algorithm. Compared to ADMM, the algorithm that we propose enjoys not only a more sensible form, but also a more general convergence result.