Reese Witherspoon’s divorce from Ryan Phillippe was both painful and too public for the private actress, but she held her perky pointy chin high and rode out the tabloid storm for the sake of her kids.

Having been burned once, Reese took her relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal slowly. The two seem to be compatible and really cute together to boot.

After over a year together, In Touch reports that Reese is finally ready to marry again.

“They laugh at each other’s jokes and they’re both homebodies,” says a friend of the couple. “They have unbelievable chemistry.” Most importantly, her children, Ava, 9, and Deacon, 5, “love him.” On October 23, the couple celebrated Deacon’s birthday at Reese’s Brentwood, Calif., home. “Jake has gotten really close to her kids,” says the friend. “Family is important to him.”

It is to Reese, too. And now the actress wants to make it official and marry Jake. “Reese is not a very spontaneous person,” the pal explains. “So she’s given a lot of thought to whether Jake’s the one for her. And he is.”

Jake brought up marriage a while ago, “but she didn’t want to rush into it,” a source says. Reese, 32, who split with husband Ryan Phillippe, 34, in October 2006, wanted her children to have time to adjust to the divorce. She also needed time to heal. After the split, Reese admitted she was sad: “I’m just sort of living day by day.” But when she started dating Jake in the spring of 2007, he renewed her faith in love.

[From In Touch, print edition, November 10, 2008]

For the wedding, In Touch reports Reese is planning an intimate ceremony of about 25 guests, to take place at the new $6.9 million house Reese bought in Ojai. A local says, “She’s already inquired with town officials about blocking off the street and getting a ban on helicopters if they marry outside.”

Jake may even convert from Judaism to Christianity for Reese.

While she hasn’t set a date, Reese expects the wedding to happen in 2009.

But now there’s a bump in their fairy tale romance.

The National Enquirer reports Jake has told Reese to cancel wedding plans after the sudden divorce of his parents, Naomi Foner and Stephen Gyllenhaal, after 30 years of marriage.

“Jake is devastated by his mom and dad’s split, and it’s soured him completely on marriage,” an insider told The Enquirer. “He can’t believe that after all these years his mom and dad are divorcing. It blindsided him. He’s already asked Reese to cool off on the wedding talk.”

[From National Enquirer, print edition, November 17, 2008]

Even though Jake has moved in with Reese and bonded with her kids, he’s now the one who wants to take things slow.

The actor flew from London where he’s filming Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to Los Angeles the last weekend in October to tell Oscar winner Reese that he wants to pull the plug on their wedding plans, said the insider.

“It’s too much of a drain for Jake to plan his wedding when he’s mourning his parents’ breakup,” divulged the insider.

“But Reese is already hinting to friends that they were going to throw a lavish ceremony next summer. And while she’s sympathetic to Jake’s heartbreak over his folks, she’s not going to wait forever for him to make a commitment to their future.”

[From National Enquirer, print edition, November 17, 2008]

It sounds like this will be a test of Reese and Jake’s relationship that they’ll hopefully be able to work out. Reese is an admitted Type-A personality, but she should give Jake the time and room he needs to deal with his parents’ divorce, the same time and room he gave her after her divorce.

Reese and Jake are shown out in London on 10/10/08. Credit: Bauergriffinonline. Reese is also shown out in Santa Monica on 10/22/08. Credit: Fame. She looks a lot happier here than we’ve seen her in a while.