Can any relationship/marriage be worked on and saved? Or what is the breaking point of when to walk away?

Hi Vic!  Welcome! Hope your day is going well.  Before I answer your questions, let me introduce myself and provide a bit of general information. 

I'm Maya, I have been a therapist for well over a decade now.  I'm one of the therapists here on the BetterHelp platform.  I am a marriage and family therapist, that's my license type, so teaching people how to improve their relationships is my specialty.  Here on BetterHelp I do that work with individuals, rather than couples, but BetterHelp does have a sister-site called REGAIN, which is a platform designed especially for couple therapy. 

It's important to know that couples therapy is generally the best way to address relationship challenges.   That said, individual therapy can certainly be a helpful service in that quest for a better relationship.  It can help you grow and better yourself, which can have a positive effect on your relationship. And (to an extent) individual therapy can also help you improve your relationship more directly, such as by teaching great communication skills! Some therapists, myself included, also provide services like dating coaching, and breakup/divorce prevention (or adjustment!) help, in the context of individual therapy.

Now to your questions!  I think there are actually 3 different questions here to unpack,  so let me take them one by one: 

YES, any and all human relationships (marital or otherwise) CAN be "worked on."  There's no law against working on whatever you want to work on in life, right?  Indeed, one person could choose to work on a relationship even if the other person is not interested in doing the same!  And yes, many people have decided to work on (often successfully) their relationship 'single-handedly,' although of course it's a much better situation when a couple decides to work on their relationship as a team! 

Remember, it's not just how HARD you work on a relationship that counts, what counts even more is how SMART you work on it.  Trying the same old vague ideas and promises that have already failed time and again for the two of you isn't going to help.  Be creative, be open to finding and trying SPECIFIC new solutions, whether you work with a therapist or not. 

NO, not "any" (or every) relationship or marriage can be "saved" by therapy if what you mean by "saved" is IMPROVED to the point where the couple chooses to stay together rather than split.  Research does show that therapy (including couples therapy) IS effective... it works.  But not in every case, there can be no guarantees, for 101 reasons that I wish I had the time to go into here, but the biggest reason couple therapy fails?  In my opinion it's because couples expect quick fixes and aren't willing to put the work in.  Or sometimes don't really even WANT to save their relationship or marriage, they're just "checking the box" of couples therapy on their way out the door so they can say "I tried."  

Relationships are, as you have surely observed by now, not easy.  They are (or can be!) incredibly rewarding but they do take some work.  Eight months married is still a very new marriage, so it's to be expected that the two of you would be experiencing some growing pains, even perhaps big ones.  Which brings me to your third question: 

"When to walk away" (if at all) is a VERY personal decision, influenced by a person's own unique set of IDEAS (mindsets), especially their core values and their relationship/marriage philosophy.  There is no "THE" breaking point, nor any agreed-upon rules about an "appropriate" breaking point, there are only INDIVIDUAL breaking points, which are determined by so many factors, some of them invisible (such as cultural expectations).  In therapy you can get help identifying and exploring your current values.  From there you can even choose to modify your set of values if you wish, as some of them may not be working in your favor... ditto for a person's habitual relationship behaviors, which can usually stand some improving.  That's hard work to do on one's own or with a self help book alone, and that's where therapy comes in.

Good luck! 

Maya