The Great Gatsby: Tom vs. Gatsby

Fitzgerald really livens the The Great Gatsby's plot when Daisy is faced with an incredibly difficult decision.  What makes the situation worse is that she is put on the spot in front of two men she loves and forced to choose between the two.  Tom is her husband with whom she has a daughter and a good life.  Based on stories that Jordan recounted early in the novel, the two were definitely in love at some point, and I think that at this point they still are.  However, both of them have strayed from the path of fidelity and greatly complicated their marriage. Tom has an affair with some woman, and Daisy is fully aware of this, and now Daisy has an affair of her own that has come to Tom's attention.  Then there is Gatsby whom had had a relationship with Daisy five years prior before it had been unfortunately interrupted by the war.  I'm sure Daisy had wished for his presence for months or maybe even years before she finally gave up hope on him and married Tom.  That circumstance probably made Gatsby all the more irresistible to her when they were reunited that summer.  Daisy has been taken for granted by her husband and responds with a taste of his own medicine.  However, in the fallout of her husband discovering her and Gatsby's affair, the two men both demand that she declare her love.  Poor Daisy doesn't know where to turn because she knows that at some point she loves both of these men, but there are huge downfalls to both of them as well.  And I think the situation is a whole lot more complicated than simple pros and cons anyway.  She must have had so much running through her mind: the accusations Tom just made about Gatsby being a gambler and bootlegger, the fact that her husband cheats on her, Tom's insistence that he will be better, Gatsby's demanding that she admit she never loved Tom.  She's just being pulled in so many directions.  "'Oh, you want to much!' she cried to Gatsby. 'I love you now- isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.' She began to sob helplessly. 'I did love him once-- but I loved you too' (Fitzgerald, 132).