I don’t think it’s possible to do exactly what you are asking.
I think you should treat them as separate relationships and then create a new method on the model to retrieve a collection of both.
public function userRelations() {
return $this->hasMany('App\UserRelation');
}
public function relatedUserRelations() {
return $this->hasMany('App\UserRelation', 'related_user_id');
}
public function allUserRelations() {
return $this->userRelations->merge($this->relatedUserRelations);
}
This way you still get the benefit of eager loading and relationship caching on the model.
$cause = Cause::with('donations.user.userRelations',
'donations.user.relatedUserRelations')
->where('active', 1)->first();
$userRelations = $cause->donations[0]->user->allUserRelations();