OKLAHOMA CITY ? Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols spent so much time with Timothy McVeigh that Nichols’ wife became jealous and eventually demanded that McVeigh not be allowed inside the couple’s home, Nichols’ wife testified Wednesday.

Marife Nichols, 29, said she was not happy to see McVeigh when he visited the couple while they were living at the Decker, Mich., farm of Nichols’ brother, James Nichols, and later at a farm where Terry Nichols worked near Marion, Kan.

“He’d just show up,” Mrs. Nichols testified about McVeigh, Nichols’ coconspirator in the April 19, 1995, Oklahoma City bombing. She said she became jealous of McVeigh because Nichols, 48, neglected her when his former Army buddy was around.

“He would take the time that was supposed to be mine and my daughter’s,” she testified.

Mrs. Nichols said she left her husband in September 1994 and returned to her family’s home in the Philippines. Nichols tried to reconcile the marriage during a surprise visit to the Philippines in November 1994.

Mrs. Nichols said she returned to the United States on March 17, 1995, about one month before the bombing, after Nichols promised “that there would not be any more Timothy McVeigh in our house.”

Mrs. Nichols was the 17th witness at a preliminary hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to try Nichols on 160 counts of first-degree murder and seek the death penalty for the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, which killed 168 people.

Nichols already has been convicted on federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges and sentenced to life in prison.

McVeigh was convicted on federal murder charges and executed in June 2001.