Laravel convert array to single object when one related model is specified - php

Question

I'm working inside a Laravel 9 project. I have a model called Affiliate which defines a hasMany relationship on my AffiliateProduct model. My AffiliateProduct defines a hasOne relationship for both a Product and Country.
An affiliate can have multiple products, but when the related product and country model are specified, I'd like to return a single entry instead of AffiliateProduct being an array, for example, right now I'd have to do:
$affiliate[0]->products->country
But I'd like to just be able to do:
$affiliate->products->country
Here's my query:
// get affiliate
$affiliate = Affiliate::where('aff_id', $request->input('AffId'))
->where('allow_submission', true)
->where('is_enabled', true)
->with([
'products' => function ($query) use ($productSlug, $countrySlug) {
$query->whereHas('product', function ($q) use ($productSlug) {
$q->where('slug', $productSlug)
->orWhere('is_default', true)
->where('is_enabled', true);
})->whereHas('country', function ($q) use ($countrySlug) {
$q->where('slug', $countrySlug)
->orWhere('is_default', true)
->where('is_enabled', true);
});
},
'products.product',
'products.country'
])
->first();
And this is what my current JSON output looks like:
{
"Result": "Accepted",
"Message": "Yay!",
"Model": {
"id": 2,
"user_id": 1,
"company_id": 1,
"aff_id": "test",
"description": "test",
"api_hash": "test",
"allow_submission": true,
"is_favourited": false,
"is_default": false,
"is_enabled": true,
"last_used_at": null,
"created_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:40.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:40.000000Z",
"deleted_at": null,
"is_deleting": false,
"products": [
{
"id": 7,
"user_id": 3,
"company_id": 1,
"affiliate_id": 2,
"country_id": 1,
"product_id": 1,
"serve_method_id": 3,
"application_form_id": null,
"pingtree_group_id": 1,
"callback_url": null,
"callback_condition": null,
"duplicate_response": null,
"created_at": "2023-02-01T15:39:01.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2023-02-01T15:39:01.000000Z",
"deleted_at": null,
"is_deleting": false,
"product": {
"id": 1,
"user_id": 1,
"company_id": 1,
"name": "Payday",
"slug": "payday",
"description": "Support brokering loan leads via an application.",
"is_default": true,
"is_enabled": true,
"created_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:39.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:39.000000Z",
"deleted_at": null,
"is_deleting": false
},
"country": {
"id": 1,
"user_id": 1,
"company_id": 1,
"country_code": "GB",
"calling_code": "44",
"name": "United Kingdom",
"slug": "united-kingdom",
"description": "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland",
"currency": "GBP",
"is_default": true,
"is_enabled": true,
"created_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:39.000000Z",
"updated_at": "2023-02-01T15:19:39.000000Z",
"deleted_at": null,
"is_deleting": false
}
}
]
}
}
Also, any tips on potentially improving my query would be appreciated.