onetoMany relationships not working or printing the wrong data. Laravel 5.3

So, this is weird. I have been implementing ontoMany relationships between users and various data sets. The first one worked... sort of. I set up the pivot table and what not, the data is correct on both ends of the table but the result when laravel calls the data is not even close:

Let's take this show user data function:

public function show($id)
    {
        try {
         $loc = UserEdit::findorFail($id);
         $array = UserEdit::findorFail($id)->toArray();
         //$prefs = Ministry_Prefs_User::find($id);
         return view('UserEdit', compact('array', 'loc'));

         } catch(\Exception $e) {
             return \Redirect::route('users.index')
                ->withMessage('This user does not exist');
         }


    }

In the blade I print out the tags for their preferences:

Preferences:<br>
            <br>
            @foreach ($loc->prefs_user as $tag)
                <br>
            @endforeach<br><br><br>

The first array prints what's stored in the original untouched user data from the old table I inherited. That's so I can compare and make sure I'm getting the right data from the pivot tables I had to generate from this info. Turns out that was a good idea, coz this is what's printing:

1A-4,1-2,1-3,2-3,3-6,4-7,6-11,8-6,8-10,9-4,7A-4
1A-1
1A-1
1A-1
1A-3
1A-4
1A-5
1A-7
1-1
1-1
1-6
1A-8

I can see no pattern other than alphabetical order? Why would this happen?

The next point is even weirder. Using the same code get's me no results at all from the other pivot tables I've set up:

public function country() {

  return  $this->belongsToMany('App\Country', 'country_user', 'user_id', 'country_id');
} 

public function prefs_user() {

  return  $this->belongsToMany('App\Prefs_User', 'tag_user', 'user_id', 'tag_id');
} 

public function language() {

  return  $this->belongsToMany('App\language', 'language_user', 'user_id', 'language_id');

Why would this happen? The models look like this:

Prefs_User

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Prefs_User extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'prefs';

   public function prefs_user() {

      return  $this->belongsToMany('App\UserEdit', 'tag_user', 'tag_id', 'user_id');
   } 
}

Country

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class Country extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'countries'; 

    public function country_user() {

      return  $this->belongsToMany('App\UserEdit', 'country_user', 'country_id', 'user_id');
   } 
    //protected $fillable = ['region', 'country']; 
}

language

<?php

namespace App;

use Illuminate\Database\Eloquent\Model;

class language extends Model
{
    protected $table = 'languages'; 
    //protected $fillable = ['user_id','language_id']; 
    public function language() {

      return  $this->belongsToMany('App\UserEdit', 'language_user', 'language_id', 'user_id');
   } 
}

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